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BELIEF  IN  GOD 


BELIEF    IN    GOD 


ITS  ORIGIN,  NATURE,  AND  BASIS 


BEING   THE    WINKLE Y  LECTURES  OF  THE 

AND  OVER    THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

FOR    THE    YEAR  i8go 


BY 

JACOB   GOULD  SCHURMAN 

Sage  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Cornell  University 
>'^  Gt  THE        ■ 

'TJHI7ERSIT7] 

NEW  YORK 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1892 


3  J)  d-s^- 


COPYRIGHT,   1890, 
BY  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 


PREFACE. 


The  following  lectures  were  delivered 
before  the  Andover  Theological  Seminary 
during  the  first  week  of  March.  They 
form  the  sixth  course  on  the  Winkley 
foundation.  That  endowment  is  ham- 
pered by  no  conditions  whatever;  a  rare 
and  surely  a  fortunate  circumstance  for 
any  theological  school.  As  might  have 
been  expected  from  the  spirit  of  broad 
scholarship  which  animates  the  Andover 
faculty,  the  Winkley  lectureship  has  been 
occupied  by  experts  in  different  fields  of 
inquiry,  who  have  treated,  each  from  his 
own  peculiar  point  of  view,  of  a  consid- 
erable variety  of  subjects,  none  of  which, 
however,  was  without  some  special  inter- 
est for  the  coming  religious  teachers 
and  workers  of  our  age.  Among  the  lec- 
turers have  been  some  of  our  foremost 
names  in  theology,  economics,  political 
science,  and  even  law.     The  themes  they 


Vi  PREFACE. 

considered  were  largely  historical  or  socio- 
logical, and  generally  of  a  practical  bearing. 
To  add  to  the  variety,  an  abstract  subject 
was  deemed  desirable  for  the  present  year. 
But  for  the  choice  of  the  particular  subject 
selected,  as  of  course  for  the  treatment  of 
it,  I  alone  am  responsible.  While  I  might 
perhaps  claim  the  sympathy  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Andover  faculty  for  the  general 
spirit  and  outcome  of  these  inquiries,  it 
would  be  strange  indeed  if  they  accepted 
all  my  conclusions,  or  even  looked  at  com- 
mon beliefs  from  the  same  point  of  view. 

No  apology  is  needed  for  a  fresh  exam- 
ination of  the  character,  origin,  and  valid- 
ity of  our  belief  in  God.  Historical 
studies  are  just  now  greatly  in  favor.  But 
no  theological  belief  can  rest  on  a  mere 
historical  occurrence.  An  open-eyed  theol- 
ogy must  have  a  philosophical  basis.  And 
its  fundamental  and  perennial  inquiry  is 
into  the  evidence  of  the  divine  existence. 

Whoever  has  read  deeply  on  this  sub- 
ject must  have  been  struck  with  the  fact 
that  so  many  of  his  own  thoughts  were 
already  the  thoughts  of  others.  I  cannot, 
therefore,  say  that  the  following  reflections 
are  original  in  any  other  sense  than  that 


PREFACE.  Vll 

they  have  actually  been  made  by  the 
author.  I  am,  in  fact,  aware  that  some  of 
them  were  derived  from  teachers,  among 
whom  I  would  especially  mention  Lotze, 
Martineau,  and  Pfleiderer,  while  others 
have  been  suggested  by  recent  writers  like 
Robertson  Smith,  Seeley,  Fiske,  R^ville, 
and  Thiele.  And  if  it  were  possible  to 
deduct  all  I  owe  to  the  unconscious  instruc- 
tion received  from  the  great  thinkers  of 
our  race,  from  Plato  to  Hegel,  the  resid- 
uum of  individual  ownership  might  be 
far  from  flattering.  I  have,  however,  not 
been  unmindful  of  the  golden  advice  of 
Goethe  —  to  acquire  what  has  been  in- 
herited in  order  to  make  it  my  own; 
and  the  result  is  now  submitted  to  the 
candid  judgment  of  the  reader.  From 
him  I  cannot  expect  the  sympathetic  con- 
sideration bestowed  by  my  Andover  au- 
dience ;  but  for  dispassionate  criticism  I 
shall  be  equally  grateful.  I  am  conscious 
of  no  other  desire  or  motive  in  these  in- 
quiries than  to  discover  the  actual  truth. 

A  word  of  apology  at  the  close.  Though 
my  subject  is  abstract,  the  treatment  will, 
I  hope,  be  found  readable,  if  not  exactly 
light  or  popular.     I  have,  however,  vent- 


Viii  PREFACE. 

ured  upon  the  coinage  of  a  descriptive 
term,  which,  as  it  is  not  likely  to  go  farther, 
can  do  no  harm,  and  does  here  really  con- 
duce to  precision  and  brevity.  A  theism 
based  on  the  facts  of  the  cosmos,  or  uni- 
verse, is  called  cosmic.  To  the  universe  we 
oppose  man ;  and  a  theism  based  on  facts  of 
human  nature  might  very  properly  be  called 
anthropic.  A  theism  resting  on  this  double 
ground  I  coll  anthropocosmic  ;  and  I  choose 
this  combination  rather  than  cosmoanthro- 
pic^  to  indicate  that,  while  mine  is  a  man- 
universe  theism,  man  must  not  be  inter- 
preted in  terms  of  the  universe,  but  the 
universe  in  terms  of  man ;  namely,  of  that 
self-conscious  spirituality  which  makes  us 
selves  and  persons.  Anthropocosmic  theism 
is  the  doctrine  of  a  Supreme  Being,  who  is 
ground  both  of  nature  and  of  man,  but 
whose  essence  is  not  natural  but  spiritual. 

The  Brooks, 

Pine  Hill  in  Catskills, 

September,  1890. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTUEE  I. 

Agnosticism,  or  the  Impossibility  of   Belief 
IN  God 1 

LECTURE   II. 
The  Logical  Character  of  Belief  in  God    .    26 

LECTURE   III. 

The   Origin  and  Development  of   Belief   in 
God 73 

LECTURE   IV. 

Belief  in  God  as  Cause  or  Ground  op   the 
World 128 

LECTURE   V. 

Belief  in  God  as  realizing  Purpose  in  the 
World 171 

LECTURE   VI. 
Belief  in  God  as  Father  of  Spirits     .     .     .  217 

ix 


BELIEF   IN   GOD. 


LECTURE  I. 

AGNOSTICISM,   OR    THE    IMPOSSIBILITY    OP 
BELIEF  IN  GOD. 


Additions  to  our  vocabulary  are  ren- 
dered constantly  necessary  by  the  growth 
of  experience,  the  enlargement  of  science, 
and  the  multiplication  of  inventions.  Owing 
to  the  predominance  of  material  interests 
in  modern  civilization,  most  of  our  new 
words  have  come  from  the  mint  of  the 
chemical  and  mechanical  laboratory.  They 
have  been  coined  to  describe  the  -various 
elements,  appliances,  and  processes,  by  the 
knowledge  of  which  the  modern  Kingdom 
of  Man  has  subjugated  to  its  use  and  con- 
venience the  laws  and  powers  of  nature. 
And  as  each  piece  of  this  verbal  coinage 
bears  the  image  and  superscription  of  a 


2  BELIEF  IN  GOD, 

material  object  or  operation,  which  may  be 
distinctly  perceived  through  the  medium 
of  one  or  more  of  the  senses,  it  always  has 
a  definite  circulating  value,  which  is  not 
liable  to  confusion  with  currency  of  any 
other  denomination. 

When  from  the  material  we  turn  to  the 
spiritual  world,  we  cannot  fail  to  be  struck 
with  the  paucity  of  its  new  linguistic  prod- 
ucts. We  may  almost  say  that  the  termi- 
nology of  the  mental  and  moral  sciences 
remains  to-day  substantially  what  it  was 
in  the  hands  of  our  first  philosophical  writ- 
ers, though  here  and  there  old  words  have 
been  impregnated  with  new  ideas,  as  terms 
like  'force,  law,  development,  and  history- 
may  serve  to  illustrate.  Though  concilia- 
tory and  even  generous  on  the  broad  physi- 
cal road,  the  Cerberus  of  language  is  inex- 
orable on  the  narrow  psychical  path  to  the 
temple  of  speech. 

That  this  conservative  rule  has  been 
more  honored  in  the  breach  than  in  ob- 
servance by  admittance  of  the  new  word 
"agnosticism,"  cannot,  at  the  outset  at 
least,  be  either  maintained  or  denied. 
This,  indeed,  will  be  admitted  by  no  one 
more    readily  than  the   agnostic  himself, 


AGNOSTICISM.  3 

whose  creea  or  temper  is  to  assert  nothiTipr 
without  sufficient  evidence.  He  will,  how- 
ever, m  this  instance  very  properly  re- 
mind us  that  the  evidence  is  not  far  to 
seek.  For  the  term  itself  is  but  of  yester- 
day. And  more  than  once  since  it  came 
into  being,  its  proud  parent  has  recounted 
the  circumstances  of  its  birth,  and  vindi- 
cated, before  the  face  of  an  ungrateful  world, 
its  right  to  existence.  Still  the  natural  and 
pardonable,  though  purely  subjective,  sat- 
isfaction of  Professor  Huxley  with  his  lin- 
guistic creation  must  not  lull  our  incredu- 
lity, or  abate  the  suspicion  —  which,  indeed, 
is  of  genuinely  agnostic  stamp  —  that  the 
bantling  of  agnosticism  is  not  altogether 
so  satisfactory  and  so  indispensable  as  its 
too  partial  parent  represents  it. 

Language  being  the  mirror  of  thought, 
we  might  expect  to  find  some  help  in  ety- 
mology. From  this  source  we  learn,  first, 
that  the  word  "agnostic"  is  a  barbarism, 
since  in  the  Greek  language,  from  which 
it  has  been  imported,  the  privative  a  never 
co-existed  with  the  termination  ^V;  and, 
secondly,  that  it  is  made  up  of  two  ele- 
ments indicating  together  a  privation  of 
knowledge,  and  so  equivalent  to  unknow- 


4  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

ing,  unknown,  or  unknowable.  Etymolog- 
ically,  therefore,  agnosticism  is  indisting- 
uishable in  meaning  from  nescience  or  ig- 
norance. The  emphasis  of  the  new  word 
must  accordingly  fall  upon  a  point  outside 
the  limits  of  its  morphology.  That  there 
are  things  we  do  not  know,  or  perhaps  even 
cannot  know,  is  a  fact  fully  described  by 
saying  we  are  ignorant  of  them.  But  it  is 
conceivable  that  a  new  term  is  needed  to 
mark  a  new  division  between  knowledge 
and  ignorance.  If  so,  the  term  should 
indicate  in  itself  how  that  delimitation  is  to 
be  made.  "  Agnosticism  "  is  a  redundant 
addition  to  our  language  if  intended  to 
indicate  the  fact  that  we  are  ignorant  of 
some  things,  and  an  inadequate  addition 
if  intended  to  indicate  what  we  are  igno- 
rant of.  If  there  were  people  who  as- 
serted they  knew  everything,  and  others 
who  asserted  they  knew  nothing  at  all, 
the  terms  "gnosticism"  and  ''agnosti- 
cism," in  that  case  signifying  knowledge 
and  ignorance  of  the  same  universe  of  fact  ^ 
would  undoubtedly  form  a  convenient  ad- 
dition to  the  language  of  descriptive  phi- 
losophy. But  since  men  differ  in  opinion 
only  regarding  knowledge  or  ignorance  of 


AGNOSTICISM.  5 

points  lying  between  these  extremes  of  the 
nothing  and  the  all,  it  is  trivial  for  any  one 
to  tell  us  he  does  not  know  without  adding 
what  in  particular  it  is  which  he  does  not 
know.  It  is  this  I  find  difficult  to  extract 
from  the  various  accounts  that  have  been 
given  of  the  origin  and  meaning  of  the 
term  "agnosticism." 

It  has  indeed  been  more  or  less  officially- 
announced  that  "  agnosticism  "  is  not  a 
creed,  but  a  method.  We  have  been  as- 
sured that  it  consists  merely  in  following 
reason  as  far  as  reason  can  go,  and  then 
confessing  ignorance  with  regard  to  what 
lies  beyond.  But  though  this  definition 
has  vaunted  itself  in  popular  polemics,  it 
is  of  little  scientific  value.  For  it  fails  to 
explain  what  "  reason  "  is,  and  how  far  it 
can  validly  go.  In  fact,  this  definition 
merely  makes  "  agnosticism  "  synonymous 
with  intellectual  integrity.  It  is  that 
respect  and  reverence  for  fact  which  has 
been,  though  not  actually  generated,  yet 
greatly  developed  and  fostered  by  the 
severe  methods  of  modern  scientific  inves- 
tigation. Of  course  it  does  not  imply  that 
we  should  never  go  beyond  the  deliverances 
of  sense  experience;  for  knowledge,  ordi- 


6  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

nary  as  well  as  scientific,  is  possible  only 
when  the  facts  of  sense  are  grouped 
under  hypotheses  or  theories.  And,  ac- 
cording to  Darwin,  speculations  are  of 
vastly  more  importance  than  observations 
for  the  development  of  the  sciences.  What 
is  meant  is,  that  the  agnostic,  in  the  forma- 
tion of  hypotheses  (the  exclusion  of  which 
would  be  the  death-knell  of  scientific 
knowledge)  must  not  snatch  at  conjectures 
which  not  only  go  beyond  the  facts  to  be 
explained  by  them  (for  that  is  necessary), 
but  which  have  also  no  probability  in  them- 
selves, or  no  ground  for  their  support. 
The  agnostic  stands  by  evidence,  and  will 
never  move  without  it.  Where  he  is  con- 
fronted by  conflicting  testimony,  if  he  can- 
not strike  a  balance,  he  suspends  his  judg- 
ment. For  example,  in  the  attitude  of  many 
historians  and  literary  critics  towards  the 
accounts  of  the  early  Roman  State  and 
the  composition  of  the  Homeric  poems,  we 
have  what  has  been  called  "agnosticism 
in  history  and  in  literature."  From  a 
similar  conflict  of  evidence  many  persons 
are  agnostics  in  the  field  of  Darwinian  bi- 
ology. Agnosticism,  in  this  sense,  demands 
only  the  graduation  of  subjective  convic- 


AGNOSTICISM.  7 

tion  according  to  the  degrees  of  objective 
evidence.  Who  that  reasons  could  repu- 
diate this  principle,  though  there  may  be 
few  who  really  carry  it  out  ? 

Removal  of  prejudice,  intellectual  hon- 
esty, judicial  temperament :  these  phrases 
all  describe  from  slightly  different  points 
of  view  the  conception  which,  as  we 
have  been  assured,  embraces  "all  that  is 
essential  to  agnosticism."  I  am  anxious  to 
emphasize  that  the  principle  of  this  "ag- 
nostic faith,"  far  from  being  peculiar  to 
Professor  Huxley  and  his  intellectual  con- 
geners, is  a  maxim  universally  accepted  by 
the  thinking  portion,  if  not  indeed  by  all 
sane  adults,  of  the  human  family.  As  a 
principle,  it  stands  on  the  same  footing  as 
the  universal  laws  of  logical  thought.  In 
actual  practice  either  may  be  disregarded ; 
but  such  lapses^ do  not  form  an  argument 
either  against  the  validity  of  the  principle 
or  against  the  universality  of  its  acceptance. 
The  substance  of  this  agnosticism  is  not 
only  as  old  as  the  writer  who  said,  "  Try 
all  things,  hold  fast  by  that  which  is  good," 
but  as  old  as  the  first  rude  court  of  justice 
instituted  by  prehistoric  man.  It  is  not 
merely  the  "  fundamental  axiom  of  modern 


8  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

science,"  but  the  indispensable  condition 
of  that  reflective  knowledge  which,  long 
before  the  dawn  of  modern  science,  woke 
to  life  on  the  plains  of  Mesopotamia,  along 
the  banks  of  the  Nile,  and  throughout  the 
entire  reach  of  the  Hellenic  world. 

But  though  all  reflecting  persons  re- 
vere intellectual  integrity,  few,  I  suppose, 
will  feel  the  need  of  a  new  term  to  de- 
scribe it,  or  if  that  coinage  be  allowed,  see 
the  propriety  of  the  term  "agnosticism." 
When  Professor  Huxley  exhorts  all  men 
to  become  "agnostics,"  will  his  audience 
suspect,  from  that  irrelevant  designation, 
that  what  he  requires  of  them  is  that  they 
shall  put  away  prejudice,  weigh  evidence 
honestly,  and  deal  just  judgments  ?  To  be 
an  agnostic  is  only  to  be  honest  and  judicial. 
If  these  old-fashioned  Latin  descriptions  are 
not  sufficient,  we  already  have  in  the  Eng- 
lish language  a  term  borrowed  from  the 
Greek  which  includes  both  ideas  and  which 
perfectly  expresses  the  conception  under 
consideration,  —  I  mean  the  term  "crit- 
ical." And  as  this  term,  which  has  also 
the  advantage  of  the  corresponding  forms 
"  critic  "  and  "  criticism,"  naturally  suggests 
to  popular  thought  what  we  have  been  told 


AGNOSTICISM.  9 

is  the  faith  whole  and  undefiled  of  those 
who  call  themselves  "  agnostics,"  I  cannot 
but  think  that  much  misapprehension 
would  have  been  prevented  had  these 
thinkers  designated  themselves  "critics." 
However,  the  new  word  is  now  a  part  of 
our  language.  And  the  most  we  can  do  is 
to  bear  in  mind  precisely  what  it  means. 

This  is  all  the  more  necessary  when  we 
find  those  who  proclaim  agnosticism  to  be 
only  a  method  of  investigation,  assuming 
that  it  implies  certain  results  in  theology. 
Their  foremost  champion  has  in  fact  as- 
serted that  agnosticism  is  to  theology  what 
death  is  to  life,  a  final  stage  in  its  evolu- 
tion. And  with  the  masses  this  is  now 
regarded  as  the  true  and  only  meaning 
of  agnosticism.  But  such  a  tenet  is  char- 
acteristic rather  of  the  partisan  than  of  the 
critic.  And  it  would  seem  to  have  orig- 
inated in  the  heat  of  recent  discussions 
over  Biblical  theology.  For  the  influx  of 
German  criticism  into  the  English-speaking 
world  has  at  the  same  time  unsettled  tradi- 
tional beliefs  and  distorted  the  judgment  of 
those  who  had  already,  on  other  grounds, 
rejected  them.  These  latter  have  failed  to 
recognize  that  the  new  movement  is  alto- 


10  BELIEF  IN  GOD, 

gether  historical,  not  philosophical;  that 
it  affects  our  interpretation  of  documents 
without  affecting  our  views  of  the  ultimate 
problems  of  thought.  It  is  no  doubt  true 
that,  by  the  sober  and  patient  application 
of  the  historical  and  comparative  method 
to  all  branches  of  human  civilization,  Ger- 
many has,  since  the  time  of  Herder,  revo- 
lutionized our  views  of  the  past  history  of 
mankind,  and  rendered  largely  obsolete  the 
historical  writings  of  the  sixty  or  seventy 
generations  between  our  own  century  and 
the  time  of  Herodotus.  These  labors  have 
of  course  shed  light,  and  abundant  light, 
on  the  writings  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments. And  there  is  perhaps  scarcely  a 
fact  of  the  older  record  which  does  not 
present  itself  to  us  in  a  new  and  changed 
aspect.  Yet  the  sudden  discovery  of  this 
critical  view  of  the  Old  Testament,  which 
more  than  one  generation  of  German  schol- 
ars had  already  represented,  ought  not  to 
have  unbalanced  the  sobriety  of  agnostics. 
Least  of  all  should  noisy  criticisms  have 
been  taken  for  the  death-knell  of  theology. 
Strife  and  struggle  are  the  conditions  of 
life;  and  experience  does  not  show  that 
the  theology  of  the  past  is  incapable  of 


AGNOSTICISM,  11 

adjusting  itself  to  the  equitable  demands 
of  all  modern  science,  physical  or  historical. 
Our  larger  conception  of  the  literature  of 
the  Old  Testament  as  no  longer  a  medley 
of  proof-texts,  but  the  artistic  expression 
in  all  literary  forms — poetry  and  prose, 
history  and  fable  and  legend,  proverb  and 
prophecy  —  of  the  ever-deepening  religious 
life  and  the  ever-growing  religious  insight 
of  the  Jews,  indicates  rather  the  rejuvena- 
tion than  the  decadence  of  scientific  the- 
ology. No  doubt  pious  minds  of  certain 
strata  of  culture  will  resent  this  invasion 
of  their  conventional  views.  But  in  all 
domains  ignorance  is  a  barrier  to  the  dif- 
fusion of  scientific  truth.  Yet  our  convic- 
tion always  is  that  truth  must  prevail. 
And  if  it  prevail  on  the  field  of  Biblical 
criticism,  what  matters  it  either  to  one's 
theoretical  views  of  God,  or  to  one's  prac- 
tical sense  of  life  and  communion  with 
Him  ?  Let  us  grant  that  the  book  of  Daniel 
was  composed  in  the  Maccabsean  period, 
that  Ecclesiastes  must  be  referred  to  an 
age  long  after  Solomon,  that  Isaiah  was 
written  by  several  hands,  part  of  it  being 
of  Babylonian  origin,  that  the  Pentateuch 
or  Hexateuch  is  a  composite  work,  and. 


12  BELIEF  IN  GOD, 

though  containmg  a  Mosaic  element,  only- 
arrived  at  its  present  form  in  the  exilic  and 
post-exilic  periods,  —  and  these,  we  learn 
from  the  high  authority  of  Canon  Cheyne, 
are  "the  facts  generally  admitted  by  the 
experts,"  radical  and  orthodox  alike,  —  is 
it  not  still  a  fact  that  the  great  religious 
ideas  and  forces  of  which  these  works  are 
the  record,  remain  essentially  what  they 
were  under  the  older  views  of  chronology 
and  authorship,  even  to  the  point  of  form- 
ing part  of  a  religious  development  or 
revelation,  that  found  its  culminating  ex- 
pression and  realization  in  the  benign  mir- 
acle of  history,  the  truth  and  life  which 
became  incarnate  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ? 
And  that  gracious  vision  of  divine  hu- 
manity has  only  stood  forth  in  distincter 
features  since  the  critics  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament have  set  it  more  accurately  against 
the  background  of  contemporaneous  life, 
thought,  and  history.  Of  course  the  lit- 
erature of  the  Christian  religion  must  be 
subjected  to  the  same  critical  study  and 
examination  as  other  ancient  documents. 
Of  course  we  shall  have  to  distinguish  in 
these  records  between  objective  fact  and 
subjective    seeming,    between   the    events 


AGNOSTICISM.  13 

they  report  and  the  contemporary  moods  of 
thought  they  reflect.  And  even  those  who 
differ  most  from  Baur  and  Strauss  must 
acknowledge  it  was  a  memorable  achieve- 
ment in  historical  science  when  they  first 
operated  the  critical  method  on  the  field  of 
New  Testament  history,  now  nearly  two 
generations  ago.  Through  them  and  their 
successors  we  have  been  led,  as  Harnack, 
himself  a  leader  in  the  movement,  declares, 
to  a  knowledge  "  richer  in  historical  points 
of  view."  But  such  increase  of  knowl- 
edge, though  leavening  traditional  and  his- 
torical theology,  is  far  from  fatal  to  all 
theology.  Nor  can  agnosticism  repudiate 
theology  without  deserting  its  one  essen- 
tial principle,  criticism. 

The  third  meaning  of  agnosticism,  and 
the  only  one  which  deserves  serious  con- 
sideration, is  philosophical  scepticism  as 
represented  by  Hume  and  Kant.  This  is 
no  doubt  the  ordinary  signification  of  the 
term  on  the  tongues  of  people  for  whom  it 
has  any  definite  significance.  And  accord- 
ingly it  is  thus  defined  in  the  great  diction- 
ary of  Dr.  Murray  with  pitiless  disregard  to 
that  "  agnostic  faith  whole  and  undefiled,'* 


14  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

to  which  alone  the  author  of  the  term 
makes  absolute  confession. 

There  is  a  certain  propriety  in  the  use 
of  the  term  "  agnosticism  "  to  express  clown- 
right  darkness  and  incapacity  of  intellect 
regarding  one  entire  class  of  subjects, — 
that,  namely,  which  has  to  do  with  an 
unseen  or  immaterial  world.  But  that  our 
faculties  are  so  limited,  the  coinage  of  a 
descriptive  epithet,  however  felicitous,  by 
no  means  proves. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  as  in  physi- 
cal science  so  also  in  philosophy  and  theol- 
ogy there  has  been  great  progress  since  the 
eighteenth  century.  Old  problems  have 
been  recast,  and  old  methods  have  been 
abandoned.  The  question.  Is  there  a  First 
Cause?  is  obsolete  for  a  generation  that 
finds  God  in  the  world,  and  not  outside 
and  apart  from  it.  Yet  it  was  to  prove 
the  existence  of  such  an  external  Deity  that 
theological  thinkers  of  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  spent  their  greatest 
strength,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  waitings 
of  Locke,  Leibnitz,  and  Clarke.  Whether 
their  argumentation  has  been  weakened 
by  scepticism  or  not,  the  question  of  an 
immanent    Divinity    is    left     unaffected. 


AGNOSTICISM.  15 

Again,  the  enormous  growth  of  mathe- 
matical science  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  imparted  a  character- 
istic complexion  to  the  entire  thought  of 
the  age.  And  theology  and  philosophy 
alike,  ethics  not  excepted,  were  content 
with  nothing  less  than  an  abstract  demon- 
stration of  all  their  theses  from  axiomatic 
first  principles,  more  geometrico.,  as  Spinoza 
says  and  conspicuously  illustrates  in  his 
system.  Following  the  mathematician  in 
his  deductive  method  of  proof,  the  ontolo- 
gist  followed  him  also  in  his  disdain  of 
facts  of  observation,  and  expected,  like 
his  exemplar,  to  acquire,  solely  by  the 
manipulation  of  his  own  ideas,  demonstra- 
tive knowledge  of  the  real  world,  —  nay, 
of  its  underlying  ground  and  government 
as  they  lay  prefigured  in  the  Divine  mind, 
as  well  as  of  the  existence  and  nature  of 
God  himself.  Whoever  would  familiarize 
himself  with  this  heaven-scaling  way  of 
thinking  must  turn  to  the  pages  of  the 
now  obsolete  Wolff.  It  is  true  of  man 
in  general,  as  Sydney  Smith  said  of  Dr. 
Whewell  in  particular,  "  Science  is  his 
forte,  omniscience  his  foible."  And  if 
human  foibles  argue  the  limitation  of  our 


16  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

cognitive  faculties,  surely  the  fact  tliat 
man  is  capable  of  correcting  his  foibles,  as 
in  the  person  of  Kant  he  corrected  the 
vagaries  of  Wolff's  omniscient  rationalism, 
argues  still  more  strongly  the  contrary  the- 
sis. At  any  rate  the  scepticism  of  Kant 
and  Hume,  directed  as  it  was  upon  an 
antecedent  system  of  thought  now  alto- 
gether obsolete,  can  have  only  an  histori- 
cal interest  for  the  philosophy  of  to-day. 
That  it  still  holds,  and  must  hold,  absolute 
sway  over  our  thinking  is  the  assumption 
upon  which  agnosticism,  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  that  term,  is  actually  as  well  as 
ostensibly  based. 

That  the  final  dogma  of  yesterday  is 
only  the  relative  truth  of  to-day  must  be 
apparent  to  every  believer  in  the  evolution- 
ary education  of  the  human  race.  From 
the  standpoint  of  Hume's  British  contem- 
poraries, his  scepticism  was  unanswerable. 
To  them  he  was  a  monster  of  so  hideous 
mien,  because  they  saw  in  his  system  the 
inevitable  outcome,  under  a  remorseless 
logic,  of  a  fundamental  principle  which  he 
held  in  common  with  themselves.  No  war 
so  bitter  as  a  civil  war;  no  hatred  like 
that   of  lovers.     Hume   belonged   to   the 


AGNOSTICISM.  17 

household  of  faith  —  in  empiricism.  It 
was  this  common  ground  that  needed  to 
be  attacked.  Aspersions  on  the  acute  and 
logical  builder  of  the  sceptical  structure 
were  of  no  avail,  but  to  distract  attention 
from  the  all-important  point,  —  the  charac- 
ter of  the  foundation.  If,  as  the  empiricist 
asserted,  all  our  knowledge  comes  to  us 
through  the  senses  alone,  there  is  no  escape 
from  the  nescience  of  Hume.  Sensation- 
alism is  the  parent  of  scepticism.  But 
psychology  since  Hume  has  shown  that 
sense-impressions  alone  do  not  constitute 
human  knowledge.  They  must  be  elabo- 
rated and  impregnated  by  thought.  Much 
that  enters  into  your  perception  of  a  page 
of  print  has  not  been  contributed  through 
any  of  your  senses.  It  is  the  memorable 
achievement  of  Reid,  the  founder  of  the 
Scottish  school  of  philosophy,  to  have  in- 
sisted on  the  error  of  Hume's  premises, 
and  in  substance  the  view  of  this  shrewd 
and  sober  thinker  has  been  verified,  not 
only  by  common  sense,  but  also  in  the 
psychological  laboratories  of  contemporary 
Germany.  No  longer  can  it  be  said  that 
because  God  cannot  be  touched,  or  heard, 
or  seen,  therefore  He  cannot  be  known; 


18  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

for  my  friend  is  not  known  in  that  way 
either.  And  if  from  certain  experiences  1 
mfer  the  existence  of  a  finite  person,  who 
will  say  that  a  similar  process  of  reasoning, 
based  on  similar  empirical  data,  is  falla- 
cious because  it  terminates  in  the  hypoth- 
esis of  an  infinite,  all-embracing  person- 
ality ?  If  the  agnostic  makes  a  distinction 
in  kind  between  these  two  inferences, 
which  may  of  course  vary  in  degrees  of 
certainty,  he  must  explain  why  the  one  is 
valid  and  the  other  not.  Mere  assevera- 
tions of  the  necessary  limitations  of  our 
faculties  can  have  no  place  here.  If  to 
sustain  them  you  fall  back  on  Hume's 
theory  of  knowledge,  you  are  confronted 
by  the  fact  that  that  theory  rests  on  a 
foundation  which  cannot  to-day  be  de- 
fended. Rectify  the  foundation,  as  the 
modern  science  of  mind  requires,  and  what 
is  to  prevent  its  supporting  a  faith  in  the 
existence  of  the  invisible  Godhead  or  the 
unseen  persons  you  suppose  you  actually 
see  with  your  eyes  ? 

If  Hume's  philosophy  is  a  direct  proof 
of  our  necessary  ignorance  of  the  unseen 
world,  it  is  also  an  indirect  or  reductio  ad 
ahsurdum  proof  of  the  initial  premises  from 


AGNOSTICISM.  19 

which  that  theological  scepticism  was  in- 
ferred. Its  permanent  result  has  been  to 
modify  the  one-sided  theory  of  knowledge 
from  which  it  sprang.  In  this  work  of 
correction  a  prominent  place  must  be  as- 
signed to  Kant,  though  in  some  respects 
Kant  was  merely  the  follower  of  Hume. 
And  his  whole  system  is  to  be  regarded, 
not  as  a  final  oracle  of  philosophy,  but  a 
mere  compromise  between  two  currents  of 
contemporaneous  thought,  on  one  of  which 
he  was  carried  throughout  all  the  phases  of 
his  journey  from  the  school  of  Wolff  to  the 
throne  of  his  critical  empire.  That  pre- 
dominant influence  was  rationalism,  or  the 
theory  that  reason  alone,  apart  from  im- 
pressions of  sense,  can  give  us  actual 
knowledge  of  the  objective  world.  This 
theory,  it  will  be  seen,  is  as  one-sided  as 
the  sensationalism  of  Hume,  to  which,  of 
course,  it  is  complementary.  That  Kant 
effected  the  union  of  the  two  cannot  be 
maintained.  His  position  is  rather  this: 
R^TiPP.  fbp  Tninr|  dnps  know  things  prior  to 
sense-experience  of  them,  the  mind  must. 
itself  be  the  co-creator  of  things ;  it  endows 
them  with  the  forms  of  space  and  time, 
with   causal    and   other  relations,   all    of 


20  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

which  have  no  existence  apart  from  the 
mind.  Hence  the  objects  we  know  are  not 
things  as  they  are  in  themselves,  things  re- 
flected in  the  nnrefracting  intelligence  of 
a  rational  spirit,  bnt  things  as  they  appear 
to  us  in  the  mind-originated  forms  of  our 
sensuous  apprehension.  We  cannot  know 
God  as  He  is,  but  only  as  He  might  appear 
to  us  in  the  picture  of  space  and  time 
which  we  project  upon  the  whole  material 
world.  Nay,  we  cannot  know  God  even 
as  our  own  phenomenal  creation  ;  for  noth- 
ing appears  to  us  as  an  object  without  an- 
tecedent impressions  of  sense.  God  is  un- 
known and  unknowable. 

But  so  also  is  the  ego  according  to  Kant. 
I  have  and  can  have  no  knowledge  of  my- 
self. I  should  know  myself  only  as  I  ap- 
peared to  myself  through  the  self-originated 
spectacles  of  space  and  time.  I  know  not 
God ;  I  know  not  self ;  I  know  not  any- 
thing else  save  as  it  appears  under  the 
transformation  of  my  knowing  it. 

This  Humian  limitation  of  knowledge 
finds  its  place  in  Kant's  system  solely  to 
vindicate  a  rationalism  that  nobody  to-day 
accepts,  sacred  as  it  was  to  the  scholastic 
soul  of  Kant.     Th^t  the  mind  should  not 


AGNOSTICISM,  21 

have  the  potency  to  know  things  without 
sense-experience  of  them  was  a  thought 
Kant  found  intolerable.  And  that  is  the 
motive  of  his  entire  philosophy.  But  in 
order  to  save  this  quintessence  of  rational- 
ism, he  was  obliged  to  limit  it  to  the  field  of 
sensible  objects.  We  can  have  knowledge 
without  sense-impressions,  but  only  of  ob- 
jects of  which  sense-impressions  are  obtain- 
able. God,  therefore,  is  excluded.  But 
the  exclusion,  I  repeat,  has  no  other  mo- 
tive or  ground  than  Kant's  belief  in  the 
rationalistic  principle,  and  determination 
to  save  it  at  any  cost.  Had  this  disciple 
of  Wolff  found  a  way  of  saving  rational 
knowledge  which  would  have  spared  the- 
ology and  metaphysics,  he  would  have 
been  more  than  content;  but  since  none 
appeared,  he  would  save  a  rational  knowl- 
edge of  space  and  of  nature  even  if  it  in- 
volved the  surrender  of  everything  else. 
The  principle  that  the  mind  is  the  co- 
creator  of  the  objects  it  knows  accounts 
for  a  rational  mathematics  and  physics. 
At  the  same  time  it  negates  a  rational  the- 
ology, since  nobody  wa,nts  a  God  of  his 
own  creation,  like  the  space  and  spatial 
objects  of  the  material  world. 


22  BELIEF  IK  GOD. 

This  scepticism  is  obviously  the  result 
of  historical  conditions  of  thought,  beyond 
which  it  is  the  glory  of  Kant  himself  to 
have  led  the  reflecting  intelligence  of  man- 
kind. The  growth  of  the  sciences  of  nature, 
by  the  application  of  the  Newtonian  method 
of  hypotheses  and  verifications,  has  also 
given  us  new  insight  into  the  nature  and 
constitution  of  knowledge.  We  see  there 
is  no  rational  or  a  priori  knowledge  of 
space  or  nature  or  anything  else.  All  our 
cognitions  are  made  up  of  perceptions  of 
sense  and  inferences  from  them  or  hypoth- 
eses to  explain  them.  Accordingly,  Kant's 
rationalistic  system  is  overthrown,  and  with 
it  is  broken  the  theological  scepticism  that 
perched  upon  its  summit. 

Agnosticism,  in  the  sense  of  the  phil- 
osophical scepticism  of  Hume  and  Kant, 
is  the  pi'oduct  of  historical  conditions  of 
thought  that  have  now  ceased  to  operate. 
In  the  light  of  contemporary  philosophy, 
there  is  no  ground  for  such  an  a  priori 
agnosticism.  It  is  a  sheer  dogma.  And  it 
is  contradicted  by  the  enunciation  of  it. 
For  if  you  hnow  that  your  cognitive  facul- 
ties cannot  go  beyond  the  domain  of  objects 
apprehended  by  the  senses,  they  are  already 


AGNOSTICISM.  23 

beyond  that  domain.  Your  assertion  of  the 
limitation  of  our  knowledge  is  not  itself  a 
fact  of  seeing,  smelling,  touching,  or  any 
other  form  of  sensuous  perception.  If  there 
is  a  barrier  to  the  onward  movement  of 
knowledge,  it  can  only  be  a  relative  barrier. 
The  consciousness  of  a  limit  is  possible 
only  to  an  intelligence  which  is  capable  of 
transcending  the  limit.  The  oyster  knows 
nothing  of  its  finiteness.  Man  does  ;  and 
it  is  this  that  exalts  him  above  the  limits 
of  sense. 

We  have  now  completed  our  survey  of 
the  various  meanings  of  agnosticism.  The 
last  refers  to  the  subject  of  knowledge,  the 
second  to  an  object  of  knowledge,  and  the 
first  to  the  method  of  knowledge.  We  all 
agree  that  for  the  acquisition  of  knowledge, 
the  critical  method  must  be  followed ;  no 
one  but  Professor  Huxley  would  designate 
it  agnosticism.  This  method  must  be  ap- 
plied to  the  study  of  the  Bible ;  but  that 
particular  results  regarding  this  particular 
object  of  knowledge  should  be  designated 
agnosticism  is  to  make  terminology  the 
sport  of  individual  caprice.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  dogma  that  the  knowing  sub- 
ject is   limited   to    the    apprehension    of 


24  BELIEF  m  GOD. 

material  objects,  and  can  never  explore 
or  even  report  a  spiritual  realm,  might 
without  impropriety  be  described  as  ag- 
nosticism. But  the  designation  of  this 
dogma  by  a  new  term  must  not  be  taken 
for  a  proof  of  the  dogma>  as  would 
seem  hitherto  to  have  been  generally  the 
case.  Nor  shall  our  just  demands  for  proof 
be  put  off  by  a  jaunty  reference  to  Hume 
and  Kant.  For  if  these  sons  of  thunder 
preached  a  philosophical  scepticism,  it  was 
only  by  appealing  to  antiquated  texts, 
which  are  now  known  to  have  been  no 
revelation,  but  mere  traditional  and  erro- 
neous reports  of  the  genuine  processes  of 
human  intelligence. 


LECTURE  11. 

THE  LOGICAL    CHAEACTER    OF  BELIEF    IN 
GOD. 

The  result  of  the  first  lecture  must  not 
be  overestimated.  It  has  not  been  proved 
that  a  knowledge  of  God  is  attainable. 
Nothing  of  the  kind  has  even  been  at- 
tempted. For  our  refutation  of  agnosti- 
cism —  agnosticism,  that  is,  in  the  sense  of 
philosophical  scepticism  —  was  effected,  if 
at  all,  by  undermining  its  own  citadel,  in 
disproving  the  theses  whereby  Kant  and 
Hume  thought  to  restrict  human  knowl- 
edge to  impressions  of  sense  or,  at  most, 
to  the  Avorld  of  sensible  phenomena.  Nor 
must  this  refutation  be  considered  incom- 
plete because  no  account  has  been  taken  of 
the  agnosticism  of  Sir  William  Hamilton 
and  of  his  unexpected  pupil,  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer;  for  what  is  of  weight  in  their 
demonstration  of  the  limitation  of  our  cog- 
nitive faculties  goes  back  to  the  founder 

25 


26  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

of  the  critical  philosophy  or  to  the  subtile 
sceptic  who  first  waked  him  from  his  dog- 
matic slumber.  Our  aim  has  been  to  put 
agnosticism,  in  the  person  of  its  classic 
defendants,  on  trial.  And  the  result,  I 
submit,  has  been  a  failure  to  make  good 
its  one  essential  thesis,  that  human  knowl- 
edge is  bounded  by  an  horizon,  within 
which  there  can  be  no  altar  save  to  the  un- 
known God. 

Can  we  then  prove  that  finite  man  is 
adequate  to  a  knowledge  of  the  infinite 
Godhead?  Manifestly,  at  the  outset  we 
have  no  right  to  make  an  antagonism  be- 
tween the  human  mind  and  the  Divine 
Spirit  by  predicating  of  them  contradictory 
attributes.  The  finite  and  the  infinite 
seem  mutually  exclusive.  A  single  point 
is  lost  in  the  immensities  of  space.  And 
yet  it  remains  true  that  the  vast  overhang- 
ing firmament  is  composed  of  a  congeries 
of  actual  points.  And  a  closer  examina- 
tion may  hereafter  show  that  the  Infinite 
Spirit  includes  the  finite,  as  the  idea  of  an 
organism  embraces  within  a  single  life  a 
plurality  of  members  and  functions ;  in 
which  case  the  finite  and  the  infinite  would 
be  no  longer  contradictory,  and  the  contrast 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  27 

they  imply  would  convince  none  but  the 
unthinking  of  the  incommensurability  of 
God  with  the  capacity  of  the  mind  of  man.  ^ 
For  the  present,  however,  all  that  can  be 
demanded  is  that  the  problem  shall  not  be 
put  in  terms  that  may  prejudge  the  answer. 
And  to  the  simple  inquiry  whether  we  can 
demonstrate  the  capacity  of  the  human 
mind  to  apprehend  God,  the  sufficient 
answer  is,  that  we  cannot  prove  the  capa- 
city of  the  mind  to  know  anything  what- 
ever, and  that  it  is  only  by  actual  trials, 
most  of  them  failures,  that  mankind  has 
found  out  what  knowledge  it  is  capable  of 
compassing.  We  grow  in  knowledge,  as 
iA  virtue,  by  cultivating  it.  The  attempt 
to  define  the  proportions  of  the  stature 
beyond  which  the  intellect  may  not  expand 
has  proved  utterly  vain.  Philosophers  may 
analyze  the  elements  that  enter  into  cogni- 
tion and  describe  their  respective  functions, 
but  this  gives  them  no  a  priori  criterion 
for  setting  up,  as  Kant  did,  one  sort  of 
knowledge  as  valid  and  another  as  illu- 
sory. And  if  it  did,  they  could  find  no 
reason  for  refusing  to  group  together  our 
knowledge  of  finite  spirits  and  that  of  the 
Infinite  Spirit.     It  may  be  said  that  expe- 


28  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

rience  alone  tests  all  our  beliefs.  But  when 
the  agnostic  proclaims  the  limitations  of 
our  faculties,  his  voucher  is  not  experience, 
but  that  precarious  a  priori  reasoning  of 
Hume  and  Kant  which  presumes  to  tell  us, 
in  advance,  how  knowledge  must  be  con- 
stituted, and  to  brand  as  illusion  whatever 
refuses  to  comply  with  their  dogmatic 
conditions. 

The  agnostic  never  wearies  of  denounc- 
ing metaphysics.  Yet,  probably,  the  most 
dogmatic  of  all  contemporary  metaphysi- 
cians is  the  agnostic  himself.  For  even 
though  his  censure  of  the  schools  were 
well  founded,  it  would  not  be  hard  to 
show  that  they  never  so  completely  desert 
the  solid  ground  of  actual  experience  as  to 
attempt  a  demonstration  so  purely  a  'priori 
as  the  agnostic's  delimitation  of  the  cogni- 
tive faculties  themselves.  The  rationalistic 
leayen  of  Kant's  philosophy  is  now  most 
active  where  it  is  least  suspected ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  critical  spirit  of  the 
master,  which  can  be  worthily  honored  only 
by  the  practice  of  independent  criticism, 
receives  the  idolatrous  worship  of  a  final 
avatar  in  philosophy.  For,  let  me  repeat, 
though  it  is  now  the  fashion  to  follow  Kant 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  29 

in  discarding  metaphysics  for  theories  of 
knowledge,  it  is  the  emptiest  of  all  illu- 
sions to  suppose  that  anything  but  pre- 
sumptuous dogmatism  can  measure,  in  ad- 
vance of  actual  trial,  the  mind's  capacity 
to  know.  The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason^ 
as  an  analysis  of  the  elements  of  knowl- 
edge, is  of  great  and  permanent  value  to 
philosophy.  But  as  an  inquiry  into  the 
extent  and  validity  of  knowledge  —  and 
this  was  its  primary  object  —  it  was  fore- 
doomed to  failure.  For  this  problem  is 
unanswerable  of  cognition  as  a  whole  ;  and 
even  in  the  case  of  particular  cognitions, 
the  solution,  if  it  is  to  be  anything  more 
than  a  process  of  arbitrary  exclusion  or  in- 
clusion, turns  on  the  greater  or  less  adapta- 
bility of  the  proposition  under  considera- 
tion to  the  rest  of  our  knowledge.  But 
Kant  could  not  rid  himself  of  the  rational- 
istic assumption  that  the  mind,  which  with 
the  empiricist  he  supposed  limited  in  its 
range  to  the  world  of  sense,  had  neverthe- 
less the  power  of  mapping  out  a  priori  its 
own  limitations.  In  this  respect  the  criti- 
cal philosophy  has  been  the  bane  of  modern 
thought,  as  it  is  the  basis  of  agnosticism. 
For  nothing  but  the  great  name  of  Kant 


80  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

could  have  kept  so  long  from  bursting  that 
rationalistic  conceit  which,  soaring  above 
the  solid  ground  of  experience,  inflates 
itself  to  the  deliverance  of  an  oracle,  pro- 
claiming the  fixed  and  everlasting  boun- 
daries of  the  knowable  world.  The  scepti- 
cism of  the  day  is  a  common  complaint. 
But  timid  souls  may  find  comfort  in  the 
observation  that  current  agnosticism  is  well 
seasoned  with  gnosticism,  and  is  perhaps  as 
near  to  omniscience  as  it  is  to  nescience. 

The  ancient  sceptics  went  much  further. 
The  sophists,  Gorgias  in  particular,  taught 
there  was  no  truth ;  that  if  there  were,  it 
could  not  be  known ;  and  that  if  it  could 
be  known,  it  could  not  be  communicated. 
While  the  modern  agnostic  abides  in  the 
uncritical  half-truth  that  we  know  only 
phenomena,  Pyrrho  went  on  to  assert  the 
utter  subjectivity  of  all  opinions,  forbidding 
any  one  to  say,  "  this  is  so,"  and  allowing 
only,  "this  seems  to  me  to  be  so."  For  him, 
therefore,  the  normal  and  necessary  condi- 
tion of  mind  was  suspension  of  judgment. 
Herein  he  was  followed  by  the  founder  of 
the  New  Academy,  who,  however,  with  still 
more  rigorous  consistency,  would  not  allow 
this  principle  of  suspension  of  judgment  to 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  31 

pass  as  knowledge.  The  view  of  Arcesilaus 
rather  was  that  we  know  nothing  save  that 
we  know  nothing,  and  this  is  not  so  much 
a  cognition  as  a  feeling.  It  is  the  outcome 
of  a  sceptical  mood,  not  of  reason  or  in- 
sight. A  similar  result  was  reached  by 
Carneades,  who  forms  the  culminating 
point  of  Academic  scepticism.  And  the 
conviction  of  the  impossibility  of  knowl- 
edge and  the  demand  for  suspense  of 
judgment  have  established  themselves  as 
permanent  positions  in  all  the  sceptical 
schools. 

I  am  not  sure  that  the  modern  agnostic 
always  perceives,  or  at  any  rate  is  anxious 
to  recognize,  his  kinship  with  the  more 
radical  schools  of  ancient  Athens.  Men 
who  find  an  intellectual  relief  in  the  escape 
from  a  difficult  problem  by  the  assurance 
that  God  is  unknowable  do  not  care  to  be 
told  they  know  nothing  at  all.  This  is  a 
shock  to  common  sense  and  an  outrage 
upon  science.  For  as  scientific  results 
obtrude  themselves  constantly  upon  our 
observation,  custom  makes  their  unques- 
tioning acceptance  a  property  of  easiness. 
And  to  question  their  validity,  in  this  age 
of  scientific  culture,  would  be  like  accusing 


32  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

Manlius  in  sight  of  the  Capitol.  But  I  con- 
template no  such  attack.  On  the  contrary, 
I  think  it  may  be  shown  that  the  sciences, 
by  means  of  which  the  agnostic  would 
undermine  our  belief  in  God,  are  as  well 
established  as  those  truths  to  which  the 
ancient  sceptic  appealed  for  the  destruction 
of  the  sciences.  What  I  desire  to  empha- 
size is  the  community  of  procedure  in  the 
two  cases,  unwilling  as  the  New  Academy 
would  have  been  to  admit  it.  For  they 
professed  an  unconditional  denial  of  all 
truth.  Yet  they  not  only  gave  out  their 
own  results  as  true,  they  not  only  endeav- 
ored to  prove  them  by  reasonings,  but  they 
must  have  been  in  possession  of  some  valid 
truth,  in  relation  to  which,  as  ideal,  doubt 
of  other  assertions  could  first  become  pos- 
sible. And  this  is  precisely  the  position 
of  the  modern  agnostic.  Children,  on  the 
other  hand,  believe  everything.  We  all 
believe  as  much  as  we  can.  We  follow 
thus  the  line  of  least  resistance.  This  is 
why  ignorant  rustics,  whose  experience  is 
narrow  and  whose  mental  activity  is  not 
much  above  the  infantile  range,  are  always 
sound  in  the  faith.  There  is  absolutely  no 
limit   to   their  credulity.      But   education 


ITS  LOGICAL  CHARACTER.  33 

and  civilization  make  man  critical  and 
sceptical.  And  what  each  doubts  is  what 
is  not  in  harmony  with  some  circle  of  facts 
he  has  chosen  as  the  absolute  resting-place 
of  his  intellect.  The  geologist  disbelieves 
the  Mosaic  story  of  creation,  which  for  the 
pious  peasant  is  no  poem,  but  a  literal  rec- 
ord of  fact.  "The  prejudice  against  the 
supernatural,"  of  which  we  hear  so  much, 
means  only  that  the  modern  belief  in  natu- 
ral law  is  casting  out  that  prejudice  for  the 
supernatural  or  the  extraordinary  which 
originated  in  the  fears,  imaginations,  and 
ignorance  of  primitive  mankind.  The  phys- 
icist, with  his  faith  fixed  in  the  undulations 
of  an  impalpable  ether,  denies  the  objective 
reality  of  colors.  And  because  the  experi- 
mental method  has  proved  so  fruitful  in 
science,  the  agnostic  refuses  to  lift  up  his 
gaze  above  the  natural  world  in  which 
alone  that  method  can  operate.  For  him, 
therefore,  God,  if  existent,  is  unknowable. 
As  every  denial,  therefore,  rests  on  the 
conviction  of  certain  truths,  it  will  be  in- 
structive to  examine  the  character  of  that 
scientific  certainty  which  is  the  absolute 
standard  of  the  modern  agnostic.  Now 
this  standard  is  not  the  same  as  what  is 


34  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

ordinarily  called  common  sense.  For  the 
latter  embraces  that  aggregate  of  the  fun- 
damental- beliefs  of  the  race,  of  which  some 
have  already  been  transformed  by  science, 
while  others  seem  altogether  inaccessible 
to  it.  As  examples,  respectively,  may  be 
mentioned  the  now  wavering  belief  in  the 
objectivity  of  color  and  the  still  unshaken 
conviction  of  the  existence  of  other  reality 
than  our  own  ideas.  The  validity  of  this 
antithesis  between  the  contents  of  con- 
sciousness and  a  world  of  reality  of  which 
they  are  the  reports  is  a  question  which  the 
phenomenalistic  scientist  relegates  to  meta- 
physics. But  in  doing  so  he  breaks  with 
common  sense,  which  is  not  less  certain  of 
this  correspondence  than  of  the  truth  of 
any  of  the  scientist's  first  principles.  I 
allude  to  the  difference  between  phenom- 
enalistic science  and  common  sense,  be- 
cause the  champion  of  popular  agnosticism 
is  wont  to  appeal  indifferently  to  both,  in 
happy  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  phenom- 
enalistic science  knows  nothing  of  his  exis- 
tence^ and  that  the  common  sense  of  man- 
kind which  does  recognize  it  is  persuaded 
also  of  the  existence  of  other  beings,  finite 
and  infinite. 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  35 

Agnosticism  and  phenomenalism  are 
complementary  aspects  of  a  single  doc- 
trine. The  agnostic  emphasizes  what  can- 
not be  known.  The  phenomenalist  explains 
that  even  what  we  do  know  is,  not  the  thing 
as  it  is  in  itself,  but  its  appearance  in  our 
consciousness.  The  scepticism  common  to 
both  is  rooted  in  the  assertion  that  scien- 
tific investigation  is  limited  to  connections 
between  phenomena  as  objects  of  conscious- 
ness. But  this  statement  must  not  be  mis- 
interpreted, as  it  generally  is.  Certainty 
belongs  to  what  is  immediately  given  in 
consciousness,  as,  for  example,  a  sensation 
of  bitterness;  or  to  what  is  inferred  or 
constructed  by  thought  from  this  sense  ma- 
terial. Thus  the  Copernican  theory  was 
developed  by  thought  from  a  host  of  sense 
perceptions.  And  the  progress  of  knowl- 
edge consists  just  in  this  interpretation  of 
sensations,  this  passage  from  the  immediate 
material  of  sense  to  the  mediated  inferences 
of  thought.  The  scientist  is  simply  doing 
over  again  the  intellectual  work  of  the  race, 
whose  interpretations  of  the  same  data  of 
sense  can  no  longer  hold  a  place  in  the 
growing  organism  of  knowledge.  The 
ancient  sceptic  was  right  in  his  contention 


36  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

that  nothing  was  immediately  given  but 
sensible  impressions,  and  that  these  facts 
of  consciousness  have  a  purely  subjective 
certainty.  But  it  does  not  thence  follow 
there  is  no  objective  certainty,  —  no  real 
knowledge  about  things  as  they  are  in 
themselves.  It  follows  only  that  objective 
certainty,  which  is  not  immediately  given, 
must  be  established  by  the  interpretative 
activity  of  thought.  And  the  only  real 
value  of  those  subjective  data  of  sense  to 
which  the  sceptic  limits  his  view,  because 
they  alone  are  what  is  momentarily  given, 
is  that  they  form  a  basis  and  a  fixed  point 
of  departure  for  the  objective  interpreta- 
tions of  the  scientific  intellect.  After  cen- 
turies of  conflict  between  sensationalism 
and  rationalism,  it  seems  to  be  now  pretty 
generally  accepted  that  scientific  truth  is 
always  the  result  of  the  elaboration  by 
thought  of  the  given  materials  of  sense. 
The  Baconian  conception  of  the  knowing 
mind,  as  a  mirror,  passively  reflecting  as 
it  actually  exists  a  world  existing  apart 
from  it,  cannot  to-day  be  accepted  by  any 
logician  of  the  sciences. 

Scientific  truth  is  not,  therefore,  as  is 
often  supposed,  given  to  us  from  without. 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  37 

It  is  we,  the  thinkers,  who  make  it,  by 
reflection  upon  the  suggestive  materials  of 
sensation.  We  construct  theories  of  these 
data,  which  are  reconstructions  of  them  to 
thought.  These  interpretations  must  agree 
in  being  accepted  by  all  conscious  minds. 
They  must  also  agree  with  that  accepted 
stock  of  interpretations  which  constitutes 
existing  science.  But  they  show  their  ob- 
jective certainty,  or  their  basis  in  reality, 
most  of  all  when  they  are  incapable  of 
being  cast  aside  by  the  progressive  rectifica- 
tion which  knowledge  is  constantly  under- 
going. And  of  all  parts  of  our  knowledge 
none  so  absolutely  fulfils  this  condition, 
none,  therefore,  is  so  indubitably  certain, 
as  that  ever-growing  section  which  has 
found  expression  in  laws  of  space  and 
time,  the  fundamental  forms  of  all  ex- 
istence. Mathematics,  pure  and  applied, 
satisfies  most  completely  our  criteria  of 
objective  certainty. 

Yet  there  is  scientific  knowledge,  apart 
from  the  demonstrative  sciences.  But  the 
latter,  by  their  clearness,  their  convincing- 
ness, and  their  earlier  and  most  marvellous 
development,  have  had  an  irresistible  fasci- 
nation for  our  great  theological  reasoners. 


3»  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

The  conditions  o  their  development,  mean- 
time, were  altogether  ignored.  We  can 
see,  however,  to  take  only  the  case  of 
geometry,  that  the  possibility  of  its  demon- 
strations, and  their  convincing  force,  arise 
from  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  subject  of 
investigation.  For  space  is  perfectly  sim- 
ple. It  has  only  one  attribute,  —  extension. 
Every  part  of  it  is  like  every  other  part, 
and  it  is  capable  of  being  represented  to 
the  eye  in  figures  which  correspond  accu- 
rately to  the  conceptions  we  desire  to  de- 
termine,—  circles,  triangles,  squares,  etc. 
Geometry  is  a  perfect  science,  because  it 
deals  with  the  simplest  and  most  trans- 
parent of  all  objects  of  perception.  We 
could  not  expect  the  same  insight  into 
material  objects  (stones,  for  example),  be- 
cause they  are  given  to  us  with  an  unknown 
number  of  attributes,  thus  being  the  very 
opposite  of  those  geometrical  figures  which 
we  construct  in  precise  agreement  with  a 
carefully  defined  rule.  The  disparity  is 
still  greater  when  we  ascend  from  chem- 
istry to  the  sciences  of  life,  mind,  and 
society.  Here  the  phenomena  under  in- 
vestigation are  infinitely  complex  and  be- 
wildering, and  experiment,  which   might 


ITS  LOGICAL  CHAMACTEB.  39 

bring  order  into  even  such  a  chaos,  is  all 
but  impossible,  because  we  have  scarcely 
any  control  of  the  conditions.  At  any  rate, 
a  science  of  concrete  existences  cannot  be 
demonstrative.  Space  is  the  most  abstract 
of  all  our  notions.  God,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  is  the  ground  and  source  and  moving 
spirit  of  all  reality,  must  be  the  most  con- 
crete object  of  our  thought.  By  no  possi- 
bility, therefore,  can  a  theology  or  science 
of  God  follow  the  demonstrative  method 
of  mathematics. 

The  lack  of  this  insight  into  the  pecu- 
liarity of  mathematical  knowledge  led  the 
great  thinkers  of  the  seventeenth  century 
into  serious  confusion.  Living  in  an  age  of 
mathematical  progress,  to  which  they  them- 
selves largely  contributed,  they  aimed  at  a 
demonstration  of  the  divine  existence  by 
reasoning  like  Euclid's.  Thus  Locke  could 
maintain  that  we  have  an  intuitive  knowl- 
edge of  our  own  existence,  a  sensitive 
knowledge  of  the  existence  of  external- 
things,  and  a  demonstrative  knowledge  of 
God's  existence.  This  knowledge  of  God 
he  considered  "  the  most  obvious  truth  that 
reason  discovers,"  and  its  evidence  not  one 
whit  inferior  to  "  mathematical  certainty." 


40  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

But  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  Goa  corre- 
sponding to  Locke's  ideal  has  never  yet 
been  given ;  nor,  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  can  it  reasonably  be  expected.  And 
I  apprehend  no  little  harm  has  been  done 
by  attempting  to  make  our  belief  in  God 
more  certain  than  it  actually  is.  We  have 
such  a  belief,  and  I  hold  it  is  legitimate ; 
but  it  does  not  belong  to  that  kind  of  abso- 
lutely certain  knowledge  we  are  able  to 
have  of  objects  so  simple  and  abstract  as 
the  space  and  numbers  of  mathematics. 

There  is,  however,  another  sort  of  knowl- 
edge. When  I  say  "  The  sun  will  rise  to- 
morrow," or  "  All  men  are  mortal,"  I  make 
an  assertion  resting  upon  invariable  expe- 
rience in  the  past.  Without  any  hesitation, 
you  accept  the  proposition.  At  first  glance 
it  seems  absolutely  certain.  Yet  it  is  only 
a  summation  of  past  experiences.  No  day 
has  passed  without  the  rising  of  the  sun. 
All  men  who  have  lived  have  also  died. 
But  how  am  I  to  know  the  future  will  re- 
semble the  past?  For  if  nature  is  not 
uniform,  men  may  hereafter  be  born  who 
shall  never  die.  My  belief  that  this  will 
not  be  so  rests  upon  an  assumption  of  the 
invariability  of  natural  laws.     Such  knowl- 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  41 

edigQ^  which  is  called  induction,  has  not  the 
same  absolute  certainty  as  geometry.  Yet 
it  is  the  best  we  have  in  many  of  the 
sciences  and  over  a  large  area  of  the  con- 
cerns of  life. 

Our  belief  in  God  is  not  of  the  nature 
of  an  induction.  The  only  inductive  evi- 
dence of  which  it  is  susceptible  w^ould  be 
the  generalization  that  all  or  most  men 
actually  possessed  it.  But  no  one  would 
say  that  was  ground  on  which  the  belief 
might  really  be  based. 

When  we  turn  to  the  third  source  or 
method  of  knowledge,  we  find  the  province 
of  which  we  have  been  in  search.  If  our 
belief  in  God  is  to  be  vindicated,  it  can 
only  be  as  an  hypothesis  in  explanation  of 
certain  facts.  This  is  the  ordinary  method 
of  the  scientist.  Newton  observes  the  fall 
of  an  apple.  To  explain  it,  he  forms  the 
theory  of  a  universal  mutual  attraction  be- 
tween bodies.  The  consequences  of  this 
theory  were  worked  out  mathematically, 
and  all  his  calculations  were  verified  by 
observations  of  new  facts.  In  many  cases, 
such  verification  must  be  imperfect.  But 
just  in  proportion  as  it  is,  is  our  knowledge 
removed  from  certainty.      It  may,  for  ex- 


42  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

ample,  be  reasonably  conjectured  that  social 
conditions  have  much  to  do  with  vice,  and 
that  if  poverty  were  eliminated,  drunken- 
ness among  large  classes  of  the  people 
would  scarcely  survive.  But  this  hypoth- 
esis is  not  susceptible  of  direct  verification. 
Again,  there  can  be  no  experimental  verifi- 
cation of  the  hypothesis  of  the  existence 
of  intense  heat  in  the  interior  of  the  earth. 
Yet  it  explains  so  many  facts  that  geolo- 
gists regard  it  as  a  highly  probable  suppo- 
sition, or,  indeed,  almost  a  certainty.  To 
the  same  class  of  probable  truths  must  be 
assigned  the  theory  of  natural  selection, 
DarAvin's  hypothesis  to  account  for  the 
formation  of  species  of  plants  and  animals. 
Probability  is  the  guide  of  life.  And 
science,  if  we  except  the  small  portion 
which  has  a  demonstrative  certainty,  can 
pretend  to  nothing  higher  than  probability. 
But  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  there 
are  different  degrees  of  probability.  If  the 
generalizations  of  induction  rest  upon  an 
assumption  of  the  uniformity  of  nature,  it 
is  an  assumption  that  commands  our  entire 
confidence.  If  there  is  still  doubt  about 
the  existence  of  a  luminiferous  ether,  the 
long  procession  of  phenomena  which  the 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  43 

undulatory  theory  has  already  explained 
forms  an  almost  sufficient  verification  of  it. 
Like  these,  our  belief  in  God  is  hypotheti- 
cal. Its  antiquity  and  universality  give  it 
a  prerogative  over  the  hypotheses  of  sci- 
ence. But,  like  the  assurance  of  our  own 
existence,  it  is  not  susceptible  of  verifica- 
tion by  scientific  tests.  The  most  that 
can  be  claimed  is,  I  conceive,  that  the  be- 
lief is  not  absurd  in  itself ;  that  it  accounts 
for  facts  whose  existence  is  admitted,  and 
accounts  for  them  more  satisfactorily  than 
any  other  theory.  At  any  rate,  I  am  un- 
able to  assign  to  our  belief  in  God  a  higher 
certainty  than  that  possessed  by  the  work- 
ing hypotheses  of  science.  And  this  allo- 
cation of  it  seems  to  be  warranted  both 
by  the  confessions  of  individual  thinkers 
of  different  schools  and  by  the  controver- 
sies which  we  find  in  the  long  history  of 
reflective  thought. 

Nevertheless,  an  agnostic  scientist  might 
object  to  this  assignment  of  our  belief  in 
God  to  the  class  of  hypothetical  truths. 
His  own  creed  is  phenomenalism,  the  doc- 
trine that  we  know  only  phenomena,  or 
what  appears  to  consciousness,  and  the  laws 
governing  their  connections.   And  he  might 


IVER3IT71 


44  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

contend  that,  though  hypotheses  are  the 
life  of  science,  the  scientist  must  not  posit 
anything  in  explanation  of  actual  phe- 
nomena which  is  not  itself  a  possible  phe- 
nomenon. The  hypothesis  of  the  divine 
existence  is  regarded  as  illegitimate,  on 
the  ground  that  God  is  not  a  vera  causa. 
He  is  not  a  phenomenal  antecedent  of  the 
consequent  to  be  explained.  Furthermore, 
when  knowledge  is  thus  restricted  to  the 
field  of  phenomenal  sequences  and  co-exist- 
ences, what  place  is  left  for  theology,  or 
what  facts  are  there  which  require  us  to 
postulate  as  their  condition  the  existence 
of  God?  And  even  if  it  were  conceded 
that  there  were  facts  lying  beyond  the  mar- 
gin of  scientific  explanation,  can  it  be  said 
they  are  accounted  for  by  an  hypothesis 
which  sets  up  as  their  condition  an  infinite 
reality,  when  the  phenomenalist  has  assured 
us  that  we  know  nothing  about  reality,  that 
we  know  only  phenomena  and  their  laws. 

It  may  hereafter  be  seen  that  this  phe- 
nomenalism is  no  part  of  science,  but  an 
accidental  accretion  rooted  in  a  dogmatic 
metaphysics.  For  the  present,  however, 
let  this  phenomenalistic  account  of  science 
be  accepted.    What  then  ?    It  by  no  means 


ITS  LOGICAL  CHARACTER.  45 

follows  there  can  be  no  further  elaboration 
of  the  facts  with  whose  sequences  and  co- 
existences the  scien43es  make  us  acquainted. 
I  see  not  why  the  intellectual  interests  of 
the  human  spirit  should  be  confined  to  the 
acquisition  of  a  knowledge  and  control  of 
phenomena.  And  this  alone  is  the  aim  of 
science.  Its  sole  object  is  to  enable  us  to 
infer  from  present  observations  what  lias 
preceded  them,  or  what  will  -follow  them, 
or  what  is  now  in  unseen  conjunction  with 
them.  To  this  end  scarcely  anything  is 
needed  but  an  accurate  comparison  of  phe- 
nomena. At  any  rate,  science  fulfils  its 
mission  without  having  to  raise  a  question 
regarding  the  true  ultimate  nature  of  those 
objects  whose  modes  of  behavior  engross 
its  entire  attention. 

But  because  science  has  iDcen:  successful 
within  the  limits  prescribed,  we  are  under 
no  obligation  to  surrender  all  the  other 
ends  and  interests  of  the  intellect.  Among 
these  is  the  desire  to  ascertain  the  under- 
lying ground,  the  real  basis,  of  all  exist- 
ence. The  human  spirit  is  satisfied  with 
nothing  less  than  a  consistent  view  of  the 
world  as  a  whole.  And  even  the  universe 
of  the  phenomenalist,  which  contains  noth- 


46  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

ing  but  actual  or  possible  appearances  In 
consciousness,  is  not  exhausted  for  the  in- 
tellect which  we  might  conceive  to  be  ac- 
quainted with  all  their  sequences  and 
simultaneities.  For  it  is  a  changing  world, 
yet  not  a  flux  of  becoming  in  which  any- 
thing follows  anything.  Definite  conse- 
quents flow  from  definite  antecedents,  as 
science  both  assumes  and  verifies.  Nature, 
even  for  the  phenomenalist,  is  not  a  chaos 
of  different  atoms,  each  appearing  as  one 
in  the  series  of  phenomenal  occurrence 
and  then  vanishing  forever.  With  such  a 
procession  of  abolitions  and  originations, 
even  phenomenalistic  science  would  be  an 
impossibility.  But  to  present  the  spectacle 
of  phenomena  recurring  in  accordance  with 
law,  nature  must  be  the  subject  of  real 
inner  connections  and  mutual  dependen- 
cies, which  nothing  but  absorption  in  the 
discovery  of  causal  sequences  could  have 
induced  the  scientific  investigator  tempo- 
rarily to  overlook.  The  plea  that  the  real 
basis  of  things  is  inscrutable  might  seem  a 
modest  and  satisfactory  defence.  But  it 
has  already  been  shown  that  it  is  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  self-contradictory,  asserting,  as 
it  does,  the  existence  of  essences  and  the 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  47 

relation  in  which  they  stand  to  the  think- 
ing spirit. 

Yet  the  phenomenalist  might  readily 
acquiesce  in  this  realistic  account  of  his 
universe,  without  accepting  the  theory  of 
a  mutual  connection  of  all  existence  in  a 
unitary  subject.  Whether  this  hypothesis 
can  be  defended  as  a  fair  regressive  inter- 
pretation of  the  facts  of  his  world,  need 
not  now  be  further  considered.  For  it  has 
to  be  confessed  that,  even  though  this  real 
basis  of  phenomena  be  admitted,  we  are 
still  far  from  the  conclusion  that  it  is  iden- 
tical Avith  God.  Nor  can  such  identifica- 
tion be  made  so  long  as  we  suppose  our- 
selves ignorant  of  the  existence  of  spirits, 
including  our  own  spirit.  The  difficulties, 
therefore,  raised  by  the  phenomenalist  can- 
not, from  the  standpoint  of  his  theory,  be 
altogether  resolved.  ^  True,  he  may  be 
shown  that  he  has  overlooked  problems 
as  interesting  to  the  thinking  spirit  as  the 
temporal  relations  of  phenomena.  But 
even  though  he  yielded  to  our  argument 
that  reality  must  be  one  and  intercon- 
nected, he  might  persist  in  denying  that 
we  knew  anything  else  about  it.  And  if 
the  ground  of   all  phenomena   cannot  be 


48  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

determined  as  spiritual,  we  have,  as  theists, 
no  further  interest  in  it. 

Still,  though  the  phenomenalist  remains 
in  possession  of  his  field,  he  has  not  won 
any  victory.  For  his  theory  is  no  part  of 
science;  it  is  not  even  the  expression  of 
any  reasoned  conviction.  It  is  rather 
the  mutiny  of  a  hasty  and  uncritical  tem- 
per, which  lacks  patience  to  weigh  perplex- 
ing and  uncertain  evidence.  If  reasoning 
fails  to  dislodge  the  phenomenalist,  neither 
was  it  reasoning  that  lodged  him.  And  so 
long  as  he  maintains,  at  least  in  disputa- 
tion, the  dogma  that  can  scarcely  be  held 
in  fact,  that  the  superficial  procession  of 
phenomena  is  exhaustive  of  the  universe, 
or  at  any  rate  of  what  is  knowable  in  it,  so 
long  will  he  denounce  as  illusion  our  hypo- 
thesis of  the  existence  of  God.  But  in 
this  condemnation  it  must  be  remembered 
(though  the  agnostic  constantly  forgets  it) 
that  our  belief  in  every  reality,  even  in 
our  own,  shares  the  same  fate  as  our  belief 
in  the  existence  of  God.  It  is  not  merely 
metaphysical  and  theological  entities  that 
are  despatched  into  the  limbo  of  vanity. 
Thither  are  consigned  also  all  other  exist- 
ences,  sensible   and  spiritual   alike.     For 


ITS  LOGICAL  CHARACTER.  49 

the  phenomenalist  the  only  meaning  of  Be- 
ing is,  appearing  in  consciousness. 

It  is  some  relief  to  recall  that  this  all- 
corroding  scepticism,  which  is  fatal  to  our 
hypothesis  of  the  divine  existence  solely 
because  it  repudiates  every  extra-mental 
reality,  is  not  the  outcome  of  science,  but 
of  a  one-sided  and  erroneous  theory  of 
knowledge.  No  doubt  it  is  often  pro- 
claimed by  our  men  of  science,  but  they 
have  learned  it,  not  from  the  book  of  na- 
ture, but  from  the  Logic  of  John  Stuart 
Mill.  That  work  first  revealed  to  them 
the  methods  they  were  blindly  following 
in  inductive  research.  But  its  invaluable 
logical  results  were  infused  with  the  spirit 
of  that  extreme  empiricism  which  teaches 
that  the  only  organ  of  knowledge  is  sense 
and  the  only  object  of  knowledge  sense- 
affections.  Its  enormous  influence  with 
men  of  science  has  ensured  the  propaga- 
tion both  of  its  vital  truths  and  its  fatal 
errors.  To  it,  more  than  to  any  other 
source,  we  owe  that  phenomenalism  which 
is  now  so  widely  diffused  in  scientific  cir- 
cles that  remain  closed  to  the  influence  of 
Kant. 

In  a  certain  sense,  of  course,  all  knowl- 


50  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

edge  is  subjective  ;  it  is  an  act  of  our  con- 
sciousness. Such  subjectivity  belongs  to 
the  ver}^  idea  of  knowing.  Objects  must 
be  perceived  by  the  mind,  and  that  not  as 
they  are  if  it  does  not  perceive  them,  but 
as  they  are  if  it  does  perceive  them.  But 
this  subjectivity  of  the  process  of  knowl- 
edge does  not  disprove  the  objective  signif- 
icance of  the  content  of  knowledge.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  must  be  acknowledged 
there  can  be  no  proof  that  our  thoughts 
about  things  actually  correspond  to  the 
nature  of  things.  Yet  we  see  no  ground 
in  the  foregoing  characteristic  of  knowl- 
edge to  deem  ourselves  the  victims  of  illu- 
sion. And  were  the  existence  of  God 
once  established,  we  should  venture  to 
express  the  conviction  that  He  had  not 
implanted  in  us  habits  of  thought  which 
are  out  of  harmony  with  that  world  of 
reality  of  which  He  is  the  source  and 
soul. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  science,  if  we  put 
aside  its  phenomenalistic  spokesmen  who 
have  already  too  long  detained  us,  assumes 
that  everything  is  objectively  real  which 
it  does  not  discover  to  have  originated  in 
the  percipient  subject.     Recognizing  that 


ITS  LOGICAL  CHARACTER.  51 

all  elements  of  our  knowledge  are  subjec- 
tive in  the  sense  that  they  are  states  or 
activities  of  our  consciousness,  it  distin- 
guishes between  those  which  are  purely- 
subjective  and  those  which,  since  they  can- 
not be  explained  from  consciousness  alone, 
must  be  given  to  it  from  without,  and  have 
therefore  an  objective  significance.  Here 
science  and  common  sense  are  at  one  in 
their  opposition  to  phenomenalism.  They 
both  set  out  with  the  assumption  that  per- 
ceptions give  us  objective  facts.  Phenome- 
nalism, treating  them  as  subjective,  main- 
tains they  cannot  be  connected  with  the 
world  of  reality.  Supposing  ourselves, 
however,  actually  in  possession  of  objec- 
tive truth,  it  could  only  be  by  means  of 
perceptions  which  are  acts  of  our  con- 
sciousness. At  this  subjectivity  of  the 
process  of  knowledge,  therefore,  the  scien- 
tist takes  no  offence.  For  him  every  per- 
ception remains  objectively  true  till  other 
perceptions,  gained  under  ascertained  con- 
ditions which  guarantee  their  accuracy, 
fall  into  contradiction  with  it  and  disclose 
in  it  an  admixture  of  subjective  elements. 
This  mutual  control  of  our  perceptions, 
along  with   the   elimination    of    what    is 


52  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

purely  subjective  in  them,  is  brought  about 
by  repeated  observations,  under  various 
conditions,  of  the  same  object.  The  indis- 
pensableness  of  such  critical  observation  is 
a  maxim  of  science.  For  experience  has 
led  the  scientist  to  suspect  the  presence  of 
subjective  factors  in  all  objective  percep- 
tions, and  he  will  call  nothing  pure  objec- 
tive truth  which  has  not  stood  the  tests  of 
his  regulated  observations.  But  he  never 
finds  his  knowledge  of  the  world  dissolv- 
ing altogether  into  subjective  elements. 
And  the  residuum,  which  must  therefore 
be  given  to  him  from  without,  he  regards, 
in  agreement  Avith  common  sense,  as  a 
record  of  objective  fact. 

Now  this  procedure  implies  the  existence 
of  a  world  of  reality  apart  from  conscious- 
ness. It  is  a  world  of  which  percipient 
man  is  only  a  part,  a  part  not  wholly  un- 
like other  parts.  But  because  every  per- 
cipient is  the  centre  of  his  own  sphere  of 
observations,  the  philosopher  is  constantly 
tempted  by  speculation  to  make  himself  the 
central  or  indeed  the  sole  reality,  resolving 
all  other  existences  into  his  knowledge  of 
them.  To  such  phenomenalism  science 
brings  disenchantment.    It  makes  man  but 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  53 

an  atom  in  an  infinite  orb  of  reality.  But 
it  does  not  deny  his  competency  to  repro- 
duce this  reality  in  his  thought.  A  part 
of  it  he  already  knows,  more  of  it  he  is  to 
know,  all  of  it  is  knowable.  Nor  will  the 
scientist  have  natural  laws  treated  as  other 
than  records  of  occurrences  in  the  actual 
world.  He  is  an  uncompromising  realist. 
While  the  sceptic,  the  agnostic,  and  the 
phenomenalist  have  gone  on  weaving  their 
tissue  of  argument  to  prove  the  incogniz- 
ableness  of  things,  science  has  reared  a 
solid  fabric  of  objective  knowledge,  whose 
possibility  is  thus  demonstrated  by  its  pres- 
ence, and  whose  actuality  must  henceforth 
constitute  the  data  of  sound  philosophy. 
This  is  a  circumstance  which  in  modern 
philosophy  has  been  far  too  little  consid- 
ered. Human  knowledge  is  no  longer  the 
medley  of  unsifted  experience,  in  whose 
contradictions  the  ancient  sceptics  found 
their  most  potent  weapons  of  attack.  The 
verified  results  of  science,  which  form  the 
larger  part  of  modern  knowledge,  are  of 
recent  acquisition.  And  whatever  our 
theory  of  the  possibility  of  knowing,  it 
cannot  discredit  truths  so  firmly  estab- 
lished and  so  frequently  verified. 


54  BELIEF  IK  GOD. 

Hence,  though  the  ancient  scepticism 
were  revived,  it  could  not  shake  our  con- 
viction of  the  objective  truth  of  the  laws 
of  nature.  Or  rather,  I  should  say,  the 
ancient  scepticism  has  been  rendered  obso- 
lete by  the  establishment  through  science 
of  a  large  body  of  systematized  knowledge. 
Take  the  ten  rpoiroL  or  logical  grounds  of 
doubt,  as  in  the  last  school  of  Greek  scep- 
tics they  were  formulated  by  JEnesidemus 
and  repeated  by  Sextus  Empiricus,  and  you 
will  find  they  have  been  answered  by  the 
careful  experiments  of  modern  science. 
Those  variations  in  objects  under  different 
conditions,  which  seemed  to  these  Greek 
thinkers  impediments  to  knowledge,  have 
become  starting-points  for  modern  investi- 
gators, whose  reward  has  been  the  discov- 
ery of  general  laws  governing  the  changing 
play  of  the  objective  world.  Again,  the 
different  and  even  contradictory  reports  of 
perception  do  not  prove  it  is  nothing  but  a 
subjective  process  in  the  individual.  They 
are  rather  a  challenge,  which  the  modern 
scientific  experimenter  has  taken  up,  to 
separate  the  purely  subjective  from  the 
objective  factors  of  perception.  Science, 
in  making  us  acquainted  with  the  laws  of 


ITS  LOGICAL  CHARACTER.  '  55 

nature,  must  drive  out  the  haunting  doubt 
of  their  objective  reality.  Experiment 
shows  that  the  materials  of  this  knowledge 
are  not  originated  by  the  subject.  They 
are  given  to  it  from  without.  The  relations 
we  know  are  relations  that  actually  obtain 
in  that  self-existing  universe  of  which  man 
is  a  part. 

I  must  not  be  understood  as  implying 
that  modern  science  proves  the  existence 
of  a  universe  outside  human  consciousness. 
It  only  renders  doubt  or  disproof  of  such 
reality  difficult  and  unnecessary.  In  a  last 
analysis  "  this  given  miracle  of  reality,"  as 
Lotze  describes  it,  is  a  primary,  but  inde- 
monstrable, datum  of  all  intelligence.  All 
knowledge  is  knowledge  not  of  itself,  but 
of  a  reality  apart  from  itself.  And  this 
realism,  we  have  seen,  is  presupposed  in 
all  science  and  gives  meaning  to  scientific 
methods.  Still,  while  science  borrows  from 
common  sense  this  fundamental  belief,  it 
makes  no  inquiry  into  the  ultimate  nature 
of  reality.  In  its  quest  of  simplicity  sci- 
ence has  indeed  postulated  a  world  of 
moving  atoms,  by  which  it  has  been  en- 
abled to  explain  many  of  the  co-existences 
and  sequences  that  constitute  the  object  of 


56   '  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

its  investigation.  But  this  is  only  a  pro- 
visional and  partial  hypothesis,  and  it  is 
attended  with  many  difficulties.  While  it 
satisfies  our  love  of  unity  and  simplicity,  it 
fails  to  convince  us  that  the  richness  and 
variety  of  the  universe  have  their  source 
and  ground  in  the  mere  motion  of  such 
homogeneous  elements.  And  whatever 
original  essences  be  assumed,  if  they  are  a 
plurality,  we  shall  have  to  ask  how  they 
could  come  together  and  form  a  single 
orderly  world,  and  what  is  the  exact 
nature  of  those  actions  and  reactions  be- 
tween them,  which  science  dogmatically 
assumes,  but  which,  from  its  own  stand- 
point alone,  are  found  to  contain  insoluble 
difficulties.  In  short,  the  scientific  intel- 
lect, when  it  reflects  upon  itself,  its  method, 
its  attainments,  and  its  assumptions,  is 
driven  beyond  itself  to  make  a  final  syn- 
thesis of  its  knowledge,  a  final  interpreta- 
tion of  the  ultimate  constitution  of  that 
universe  whose  parts  it  has  brought  to  the 
light  of  an  intelligence  which  cannot  rest 
satisfied  with  mere  causal  connections.  It 
is  by  such  a  final  effort  we  are  carried,  if 
at  all,  to  the  hypothesis  of  the  existence  of 
God.     The  grounds  that  may  warrant  that 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  57 

hypothesis  will  be  considered  hereafter. 
At  present  our  only  aim  is  to  show  the 
need  of  this  or  some  similar  hypothesis,  in 
addition  to  the  results  of  natural  science, 
even  though  natural  science  had  completely 
fulfilled  its  mission,  as  an  answer  to  the 
legitimate  demand  of  the  thinking  spirit 
for  a  connected  view  of  the  universe  as  a 
whole.  Science  is  the  record  of  causal 
relations ;  but  causation  is  only  a  single 
ray  of  that  prismatic  intelligence  which 
needs  to  diffuse  itself  in  unbroken  unity 
over  the  whole  sphere  of  Being. 

The  nearest  approach  made  by  science 
to  our  hypothesis  of  the  existence  of  God 
lies  in  the  assertion  of  the  universality  of 
law.  This  assertion  is  a  mere  postulate 
whose  validity  no  experience  can  confirm. 
Confirmatory  instances  in  the  past  and  of 
the  known  warrant  no  inference  with  re- 
gard to  the  future  and  the  unknown,  save 
on  the  tacit  admission  of  the  principle  it- 
self, —  the  universality  of  law.  What  the 
supposition  is  based  upon  is  the  conviction 
of  the  unity  and  systematic  connection  of 
all  reality.  It  is  this  conviction,  and  this 
alone,  which  enables  us  to  argue  from  one 
part  of  reality  to  another,  from  the  past  to 


58  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

the  future,  from  tlie  known  to  the  un- 
known. Owing  to  the  prevalence  of  phe- 
nomenalism the  scientist  rarely  expresses 
his  initial  assumption  in  these  realistic 
terms.  The  chemist  or  physician,  however, 
must  often  have  a  suspicion  that  in  ex- 
plaining phenomena  he  is  noting  their  real 
mutual  dependence  upon  one  another.  Yet 
if  interrogated,  he  would  probably  speak 
by  the  card,  and  tell  you  he  was  only  not- 
ing relations  of  succession  and  simulta- 
neity. This,  however,  need  not  hinder  us 
from  interpreting  the  universal  postulate 
of  science  as  involving  the  existence  of  a 
unitary  interconnected  cosmos  embracing 
all  reality.  And  when  the  scientific  posi- 
tion is  thus  stated,  the  scientific  impulse 
itself  forces  us  to  the  next  inquiry:  How 
shall  we  conceive  of  the  nature  of  that 
one  reality  in  order  to  make  intelligible  its 
modes  of  behavior,  as  science  has  recorded 
them?  This  is  surely  a  legitimate  ques- 
tion. Of  course  it  is  a  difficult  one;  but 
we  have  no  more  right  to  say  it  is  unan- 
swerable than  to  say  that  a  problem  in 
physics  yet  unsolved  is  insoluble.  Equally 
true  is  it  that  the  question  has  not  here 
been  answered.     At  present  my  only  en- 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  59 

deavor  is  to  justify  the  asking  of  it. 
Whether  the  hypothesis  of  the  existence 
of  God  contains  a  satisfactory  answer  is  a 
point  reserved  for  subsequent  consideration. 
The  results  hitherto  attained  will  seem 
to  many  minds  very  inconsiderable.  But 
the  progress  of  sound  knowledge  is  always 
slow.  And  in  a  matter  like  the  present, 
it  seems  advisable  to  begin  at  the  begin- 
ning, to  set  down  nought  in  haste,  and  to 
extenuate  nought  of  all  the  objections  that 
have  been  brought  against  our  undertaking. 
And  though  little,  something  has  actually 
been  gained  in  the  course  of  our  inqui- 
ries, something  too  of  not  inconsiderable 
significance.  It  has  been  seen  that  science 
per  se  is  not  phenomenalistic,  but  realistic. 
It  has  been  seen  that  the  indispensable 
postulate  of  science  —  the  universality  of 
the  laws  of  nature  —  is  only  the  expres- 
sion of  a  conviction  of  the  unity  and  uni- 
versal inner  connection  of  all  reality.  What 
the  nature  of  this  reality  must  be,  if  it  is 
to  render  intelligible  those  fixed  mutual  de- 
pendencies of  things  which  science  reads  as 
laws  of  causation,  is  a  question  the  reflect- 
ing spirit  cannot  possibly  forego,  though 
the  answer  can  never  be  more  certain  than 


60  BELIEF  IX  GOD. 

a  scientific  hypothesis  incapable  of  com- 
plete verification.  As,  however,  the  only 
reality  we  know  from  the  inside  is  a  spirit- 
ual ego.)  it  may  be  premised  that  if  the 
hypothesis  of  a  universal  spirit  or  world- 
soul  accounted  for  the  fundamental  as- 
sumptions of  science,  it  would  be  in  itself 
an  admissible  hypothesis,  and  probable  just 
in  proportion  as  we  could  reconcile  with 
it  all  the  remaining  facts  of  our  knowledge. 
Such  an  hypothesis  I  hope  to  be  able  to 
establish  with  reasonable  certainty.  But 
we  can  scarcely  reckon  upon  the  sympathy 
either  of  popular  or  of  scientific  thought. 
The  mass  of  mankind  refuses  to  associate 
God  with  nature  except  as  its  distant 
creator  and  designer.  The  champions  of 
the  natural  sciences  maintain  that  their 
discoveries  of  casual  connections  are  the 
be-all  and  end-all  of  our  knowledge  of 
nature.  Both  agree  in  the  scholastic  dic- 
tum of  Sir  William  Hamilton :  "  Nature 
conceals  God."  And  the  scientist  espe- 
cially is  sure  that  the  cosmos  (man  apart) 
presents  no  problem  that  might  lead  us  to 
look  for  a  divine  presence.  Theoretical 
thought,  he  tells  us,  if  left  to  itself,  would 
never  find  an  occasion  to  step  beyond  the 


ITS  LOGICAL  CHARACTER.  61 

connections  of  the  material  world  we  per- 
ceive by  our  senses.  It  might  recognize 
the  infinitude  of  these  relations  and  the 
inability  of  thought  to  compass  them,  but 
beyond  the  horizon  of  actual  experience  it 
would  have  no  ground  to  assume  anything 
but  an  unbroken  series  of  causal  connec- 
tions. This  similarity  of  the  unknown  to 
the  known  I  do  not  call  in  question.  But 
I  must  repeat  that  it  rests  on  the  postulate 
of  the  inner  systematic  connection  of  all 
reality.  And  of  this  connection  —  these 
fixed  mutual  actions  and  reactions  of  things 
—  theoretical  thought  is  surely  obliged  to 
form  some  conception.  And  if  so,  we  are 
driven  by  thought  itself  beyond  the  realm 
of  its  achievements  in  science  to  an  inter- 
pretation of  the  nature  of  ultimate  reality. 
It  is  not  beyond  the  connections  of  the  sen- 
sible world  we  expect  to  see  God,  but  in 
and  through  them  as  the  sole  condition  of 
their  possibility.  That  our  belief  in  God, 
therefore,  must  be  without  cosmic  grounds 
cannot  be  conceded  to  the  scientist.  Only 
by  arbitrarily  limiting  the  operations  and 
interests  of  intelligence  to  the  bare  fact  of 
causal  relations  can  such  a  dogma  be  main- 
tained.    It  is  impossible  to  give  a  reason 


62  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

for  this  limitation;  but  the  cause  is  no 
doubt  found  in  our  absorption  in  science, 
our  adoption  of  scientific  methods,  and  our 
temptation  to  measure  the  mind  of  man  by 
what  it  has  achieved  in  a  conspicuous, 
though  single,  field  of  its  activity.  It 
seems  probable,  however,  that  in  the  prog- 
ress of  science  the  human  mind  will  return 
to  a  critical  analysis  of  its  scientific  start- 
ing-points. And  in  this  metaphysic  of 
science  what  we  mean  when  we  say  a 
thing  exists  or  an  event  happens  will  have 
to  be  explained.  Should  it  turn  out  that 
our  hypothesis  of  the  being  of  God  is  the 
only  one  that  can  render  intelligible  exist- 
ence and  change,  which  the  scientist  is 
obliged  to  recognize,  the  result  would  be 
what  might  fairly  be  called  a  doctrine  of 
cosmic  theism. 

This  metaphysic  of  nature  could  not, 
however,  become  a  doctrine  of  cosmic  the- 
ism^ unless  it  had  been  shown  that  the  ulti- 
mate ground  of  being  and  change  were  an 
infinite  spirit.  And  this  proof  would  be 
wanting  so  long  as  man,  the  only  spiritual 
being  we  know,  were  omitted  from  the 
data.  Consequently,  while  nature  does  not 
conceal  God,  it  reveals  him  only  as  a  meta- 


ITS  LOGICAL    'CHARACTER.  63 

physical  unity,  demanding  characteristics 
which  would  remain  unintelligible  to  us 
but  for  our  own  experience  of  self-conscious 
existence.  This  is  the  humanistic,  or,  as 
I  should  prefer  to  call  it,  in  contrast  with 
the  cosmic,  the  anthropic  element  in  our 
idea  of  God.  I  might  indeed  have  de- 
scribed it  as  anthropomorphic.  But  that 
much-abused  term,  as  its  etymology  sug- 
gests, signified  originally  the  ascription  to 
God  of  a  human  form.  It  was  this  belief 
among  the  Greeks  of  the  sixth  century 
before  Christ  that  excited  the  irony  and 
aversion  of  Xenophanes  of  Colophon,  the 
burden  of  whose  complaint  was  that  mor- 
tals believe  the  gods  to  have  senses,  voice, 
and  body  like  their  own,  just  as  oxen  and 
horses,  if  they  could  paint,  would  foolishly 
represent  the  gods  with  the  bodies  of  horses 
and  oxen.  But  the  ascription  to  God  of 
moral  and  intellectual  attributes  akin  to  the 
human  was  not  branded  as  anthropomor- 
phism by  the  ancients,  nor  by  the  moderns 
either,  until  within  very  recent  times.  At 
present,  however,  eminent  professors  of  the 
natural  sciences,  who  have  the  ear  of  the 
public,  have  effected  this  extension  in  the 
use  of  the  term;  and  anthropomorphism 


64  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

has  degenerated  into  a  fashionable  epithet 
of  reproach  for  any  theory  which  essays 
to  form  even  an  hypothetical  conception  of 
God.  But  the  fashion  of  this  world  passeth 
away ;  and  despite  its  present  frown,  I  see 
no  alternative  to  our  ascription  of  self- 
consciousness  to  the  one  ultimate  reality 
whose  existence  science  obliges  us  to  as- 
sume. For  that  reality  must,  to  say  noth- 
ing more,  be  so  constituted  that  it  shall  be 
a  unity  in  the  midst  of  change.  And  this 
condition  is  satisfied,  so  far  as  our  knowl- 
edge extends,  only  by  self-conscious  spirit, 
of  which  we  are  immediately  aware  in  our 
own  inner  experience.  Our  hypothesis, 
then,  is  a  cosmic  hypothesis,  for  its  object 
is  to  account  for  facts  in  the  objective 
world.  It  cannot,  however,  be  completely 
developed,  without  taking  account  of  our 
own  conscious  experience  ;  and  this  appeal 
to  man  may  be  called  the  anthropic  aspect 
of  the  hypothesis.  If,  then,  self-conscious- 
ness is  the  only  admissible  form  under 
which  the  ground  and  essence  of  things 
may  be  represented,  our  ultimate  interpre- 
tation of  the  universe  is  not  merely  a  cos- 
mic, but  an  anthropocosmic  theism. 

This  hypothesis,  let  me  repeat,  I  do  not 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  ^b 

attempt  to  establish  here.  That  is  a  task 
to  be  undertaken  in  later  lectures.  At 
present  I  am  only  maintaining  that  the 
postulates  of  science  warrant  and  demand 
some  interpretation  of  ultimate  reality,  and 
that  anthropocosmic  theism  satisfies  at  least 
the  formal  requirements  of  a  scientific  hy- 
pothesis. To  make  this  clear,  I  have  inci- 
dentally given  hints  of  the  subsequent  argu- 
ment, which  is  to  show  that  our  hypothesis 
is  a  tenable  one  in  view  of  all  the  facts. 
It  will  not  surprise  me  if  these  hints  are 
deemed  inadequate.  But  the  proof  of  a 
position  ought  not  to  be  expected  in  a  pre- 
liminary statement  and  vindication  of  it. 

To  some  it  may  seem  strange  that  I 
dwell  upon  the  mere  possibility  of  a  scien- 
tific hypothesis  of  the  existence  of  God. 
But  the  fact  is  that  this  possibility  is  gen- 
erally denied  by  the  spokesmen  of  modern 
science.  Repudiating  the  ideas  of  creation 
and  design,  they  find  no  objective  basis 
for  our  belief  in  God,  no  facts  in  nature 
requiring  such  an  hypothesis.  We  have 
endeavored,  on  the  other  hand,  to  show 
that  science  draws  its  life  from  an  assump- 
tion regarding  the  nature  of  reality,  which 
needs  only  elucidation  to  lead  scientifically 


Q6  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

to  the  hypothesis  of  the  divine  existence. 
Such  an  hypothesis,  therefore,  would  de- 
serve the  name  of  knowledge,  though  not 
ranking  among  demonstrative  truths.  But 
the  whole  spirit  of  modern  science  is  to- 
wards the  extrusion  of  every  theistic  in- 
terpretation of  the  world  from  the  domain 
of  scientific  knowledge.  It  is  supposed 
that  the  only  vouchers  for  the  existence 
of  God,  if  indeed  there  are  any,  are  to  be 
found  in  ourselves,  —  in  our  ethical  postu- 
lates. The  idea  of  God  is  not  required,  we 
are  told,  for  the  interpretation  of  the  uni- 
verse, but  only  for  the  satisfaction  of  the 
demands  of  our  moral  nature.  Without  it 
there  would  be  moral  paralysis  in  the  life 
of  man.  Here  you  have  a  form  of  anthropic 
theism  that  may  be  called  ethical  theism.  It 
is  not  of  the  nature  of  a  scientific  hypothe- 
sis. It  is  a  mere  subjective  faith,  based 
on  the  conviction  of  the  moral  vocation  and 
destiny  of  man.  But  this  ethical  theism 
lacks  the  solid  basis  of  cosmic  facts.  And 
it  will  remain  a  mere  postulate,  without 
scientific  foundation,  until  the  discovery 
is  made  that,  if  we  look  steadily  into  the 
face,  or,  at  any  rate,  into  the  heart  of  the 
universe,  we  can  escape  permanent  intel- 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  67 

lectual  confusion  only  by  that  hypothesis 
of  a  world-spirit,  which  I  have  ventured 
to  christen  an thropo cosmic  theism. 

The  moral  evidence  for  the  existence  of 
God,  taken  by  itself,  is  inadequate.  As 
part  of  a  cumulative  argument,  it  is,  no 
doubt,  of  very  great  weight.  But  if  no 
God  can  be  found  in  the  universe,  there 
will  always  be  a  temptation  to  dilute  mo- 
rality to  the  consistency  of  this  cosmic 
atheism.  It  is  easier  to  relax  the  high 
sense  of  duty  to  expediency  than  to  main- 
tain it  at  a  tension  which  nothing  but  faith 
in  God  can  keep  from  snapping.  Ethical 
theism  cannot  long  sustain  itself  beside 
cosmic  atheism.  It  is,  therefore,  a  matter 
of  great  moment  to  understand  how  they 
ever  came  to  be  put  together.  Were  it 
true  that  nature  conceals  God  while  man 
reveals  Him,  this  combination  of  cosmic 
atheism  and  anthropic  theism  would  not 
surprise  us.  But  this  is  not  the  fact,  as 
we  have  already  shown.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  close  examination  of  our  belief 
in  God  reveals  characteristics  which  must 
always  render  it  an  object  of  some  suspi- 
cion to  men  of  science.  They  accept  truths 
as  objective  only  when  all  subjective  fac- 


b»  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

tors  have  been  eliminated  from  them.  Sci- 
entific truth  is  absolutely  disinterested.  It 
reports  the  facts  of  the  world  as  they  are, 
without  any  concern  for  the  hopes  and  fears 
and  yearnings  of  the  scientist  himself.  Now 
we  are  all  deeply  interested  in  the  momen- 
tous question  of  the  existence  of  God.  It 
is  big  with  our  own  destiny,  with  the  mys- 
teries of  the  whence,  the  what,  and  the 
whither  of  every  human  soul.  With  pro- 
tracted thinking  of  God,  the  flood-gates  of 
the  heart  are  opened,  and  all  the  springs 
of  life  are  thrown  into  commotion.  Now 
it  may  be  urged,  and  not  without  appear- 
ance of  reason,  that  an  hypothesis  of  the 
existence  of  a  Being  with  whom  our  own 
life  is  so  commingled,  cannot  have  the  dis- 
interestedness, the  pure  objectivity,  which 
the  scientist  demands  of  every  cosmic  hy- 
pothesis. Is,  then,  anthropocosmic  theism 
after  all  an  illegitimate  hypothesis  ?  Does 
our  belief  in  God  resolve  itself  into  mere 
vivacious  feelings,  as,  according  to  Hume, 
is  the  case  with  our  belief  in  all  existence, 
that  of  self  and  nature  as  well  as  that  of 
God? 

One  thing  is  certain.     Those  objective 
facts  in  explanation  of  which  we  framed 


ITS  LOGICAL   CHARACTER.  69 

our  hypothesis  remain  precisely  what  they 
are,  Avhatever  be  our  psychological  account 
of  the  grounds  and  motives  of  belief.  That 
being  premised,  I  readily  admit  the  influ- 
ence of  wishes,  desires,  and  feelings,  espe- 
cially hope  and  fear,  upon  human  belief. 
It  is  a  popular  saying  that  men  believe 
what  they  want  to  believe :  "  the  wish  is 
father  to  the  thought."  And  the  mental 
life  of  the  race,  as  of  every  new  individual 
born  into  it,  begins  with  absolute  credulity. 
But  this  intellectual  gluttony  soon  pro- 
duces dyspepsia,  and  many  of  the  former 
relishes  must  be  abandoned.  New  beliefs 
conflict  with  old,  and  stable  equilibrium  is 
restored  only  by  elimination  of  the  less 
favored.  In  this  struggle  for  existence, 
the  beliefs  that  survive  may  first  of  all  be 
those  that  stimulate  the  feelings  and  the 
will,  but  in  the  long  run  they  are  those 
that  accord  best  with  the  objective  facts. 
Even  among  the  lower  animals  this  is  nec- 
essary, for  otherwise  that  intelligence  by 
means  of  which  they  have  escaped  destruc- 
tion could  not  have  been  a  guide  to  action. 
And  this  predominance  of  objective  beliefs 
over  subjective  interests  is  what  intellec- 
tual  education  aims  to  effect.     The  man 


70  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

who  can  maintain  his  intellectual  centre  of 
gravity  in  the  presence  of  highly  exciting 
and  stingingly  interesting  objects  of  belief 
is,  at  least  according  to  the  standard  of 
science,  the  man  of  ideal  education. 

Now  what  I  maintain  is,  that  in  the  long 
education  of  the  human  race,  at  least  its 
most  favored  members  have  outgrown  the 
influence  of  those  fancies,  illusions,  and 
hallucinations  which  distort  the  intellec- 
tual vision  of  infancy.  And  though  those 
liars  —  hopes  and  fears  —  are  still  with  us, 
we  know  they  are  liars,  and  stand  upon 
our  guard.  An  illusion  recognized  is  no 
illusion.  Now  the  proof  that  intellectual 
judgments  are  independent  of  our  own 
wishes,  is  the  existence  of  that  great  body 
of  objective  knowledge  which  we  call  the 
sciences.  To  a  greater  or  less  degree,  as- 
tronomy, chemistry,  biology,  and  all  the 
sciences  originated  in  practical  interests. 
The  history  of  their  growth  is  the  history 
of  the  triumph  of  rational  belief  over  the 
seductions  of  alchemy,  astrology,  witch- 
craft, and  the  whole  horde  of  subjective 
illusions.  Hopes  and  fears  are  strong,  but 
stronger  still  in  the  modern  man  is  the  love 
of  truth.     And  so  I  conclude  that,  though 


ITS  LOGICAL  CHARACTER.  71 

the  hjrpothesis  of  the  existence  of  God  is 
one  in  which  we  have  a  deep  and  moving 
interest,  our  minds  have  been  so  trained 
and  poised  by  thought,  that  we  can  esti- 
mate the  evidence  of  this  hypothesis  with 
the  same  disinterestedness  and  objectivity 
of  attitude  that  we  bring  to  the  examina- 
tion of  any  other  wide  cosmic  hypothesis. 
Of  course  we  shall  need  to  be  on  the  alert 
against  the  influence  of  feelings.  But  that 
is  no  peculiarity  of  the  present  inquiry. 

The  general  conclusion  is  that  anthropo- 
cosmic  theism,  though  not  yet  established 
as  absolutely  satisfactory  and  tenable,  must 
nevertheless  be  admitted  to  be  a  possible 
and  even  legitimate  hypothesis  for  the  in- 
terpretation of  the  ultimate  facts  of  exist- 
ence. The  next  step  would  be  to  confirm 
this  hypothesis  by  proof,  or  rather  to  adduce 
the  grounds  on  which  its  validity  may  be 
maintained.  The  genius  of  history,  how- 
ever, must  not  be  outraged.  And  before 
advancing  new  arguments  in  favor  of  an- 
thropocosmic  theism,  I  cannot  forego  an 
examination  of  the  historical  phases  of 
man's  belief  in  God,  with  a  view  to  dis- 
covering the  essence  of  their  content  and 
the  goal  of  their  development.   If  it  should 


72  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

be  found,  as  I  am  persuaded  is  the  fact,  that 
the  human  mind  begins  with  a  vague,  natu- 
,  ralistic-humanistic  conception  of  the  gods 
(a  conception  whose  elements  are  not  yet 
differentiated,  much  less  opposed),  and  that 
reflection,  after  developing  this  latent  con- 
trast in  the  opposite  directions  of  naturism 
and  animism,  rises  everywhere  with  the 
progress  of  civilization  to  a  synthesis  of 
both  nature  and  man  in  one  eternal  and 
spiritual  ground,  the  history  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  religious  consciousness  would 
be  itself  an  argument  in  favor  of  that 
hypothesis  which  we  here  seek  to  estab- 
lish. That  anthropocosmic  theism  is  the 
goal  of  man's  growing  consciousness  of 
God,  —  and  as  goal  also  its  final  cause  and 
essential  content  at  every  stage  of  devel- 
opment, —  must  be  left  to  the  following 
lecture  to  show,  from  a  survey  of  the  facts 
of  religious  history. 


LECTURE  III. 

THE    ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT   OF 
BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

Space  is  the  form  of  the  material  uni- 
verse. But  all  that  is,  physical  and  psychi- 
cal alike,  exists  in  time,  and  in  time  has 
come  to  be  what  it  now  is.  To  understand 
the  nature  of  things,  therefore,  we  must 
see,  not  only  the  completed  result,  but  the 
entire  succession  of  phases  of  which  it  is 
the  final  outcome.  This  is  the  justification 
of  that  historical  method  which  has  been  so 
fruitfully  applied  to  the  sciences  during  the 
present  century,  transforming  them,  from 
a  miscellany  of  superficial  observations, 
into  a  progressive  and  systematic  record 
of  the  ever-unfolding  drama  of  the  world. 
Evolutionary  science  is  the  name  ordina- 
rily given  to  this  new  historical  knowledge 
of  nature.  But  the  same  method  has  been 
carried  into  our  study  of  man  —  the  prov- 
ince of  history  in  its  narrower  sense.     And 

73 


74  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

we  bind  together  all  our  knowledge  of 
human  thinking,  doing,  and  suffering,  by 
this  modern  conception  of  gradual  develop- 
ment. So  far,  indeed,  has  this  excellent 
method  been  pushed  that  some  philoso- 
phers have  supposed  themselves  to  be  de- 
scribing the  nature  of  things  when  they 
were  only  enumerating  the  circumstances 
that  favored  the  development  of  them. 
And  it  has  been  widely  assumed  that  cer- 
tain beliefs  lost  their  validity  when  once 
the  history  of  their  origin  and  growth  had 
been  discovered. 

But  the  faults  arising  from  the  misin- 
terpretation of  a  principle  are  not  to  be 
charged  to  the  principle  itself.  Whatever 
erroneous  inferences  have  been  drawn  by 
this  or  that  evolutionist,  the  soundness  of 
the  evolutionary  method  remains  intact. 
That  method  is  based  on  the  fact  that  all 
existences,  all  objects  of  thought  or  in- 
quiry, are  in  a  state  of  becoming.  And 
this  process  is- a  series  of  changes  in  time. 
The  evolutionary  or  historical  method, 
therefore,  makes  science  a  reproduction  in 
thought  of  the  successive  phases  of  object- 
ive reality.  And  this  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary  for   our   knowledge,   since    the   full 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  15 

nature  of  any  reality  reveals  itself  only 
in  the  totality  of  its  development.  This 
is  a  point  too  little  noticed  by  current  evo- 
lutionism, which  exhausts  itself  in  discov- 
ering the  changing  phases  of  developing 
reality  with  scarce  an  attempt  to  effect  a 
synthesis  of  their  essential  content.  Such 
one-sidedness  is  a  prolific  source  of  scepti- 
cism, especially  in  morals  and  religion. 
One  historical  variety  is  confronted  by  an- 
other, as  though  both  were  not  differentia- 
tions of  some  common  species.  Polytheism, 
monotheism,  and  pantheism  are  supposed 
to  cancel  one  another,  leaving  the  enlight- 
ened mind  with  no  belief  in  God.  For 
the  correction  of  such  an  hasty  inference,  it 
needs  only  to  be  observed  that  two  func- 
tions are  required  in  all  knowledge,  —  the 
perception  of  difference,  and  the  percep- 
tion of  likeness,  and  that  one  is  not  more 
indispensable  than  the  other.  However 
valuable  the  discriminations  of  the  evolu- 
tionary historian,  they  yield  no  knowledge 
till  fused  together  by  the  complementary 
function  of  assimilation.  Identity  in  dif- 
ference is  the  characteristic  both  of  being 
and  of  thought. 

We   may,   therefore,   expect  to   be   in- 


76  BELIEF  IK  GOD. 

structed  by  a  survey  of  the  historical  vari- 
eties of  man's  belief  in  God.  But  we 
cannot  be  content  with  the  mere  juxtapo- 
sition of  them.  We  must  understand  their 
connections  and  the  principle  of  their 
growth.  In  a  word,  we  are  in  quest,  not 
of  a  morphological  classification  of  man's 
belief  in  God,  but  of  a  real  history  of  its 
growth  and  development.  Now  we  are  as- 
sured by  our  most  trustworthy  historians 
of  religion,  that  no  tribe  or  nation  has  yet 
been  met  with  destitute  of  belief  in  any 
higher  beings.  As  this  aspect  of  religion 
seems  a  universal  phenomenon  of  humanity, 
it  might  also  be  assumed  to  be  as  old  as  the 
human  race.  But  so  far  backward  we  cer- 
tainly cannot  follow  it.  Our  data  do  not 
carry  us  far  beyond  the  millenniums  of  re- 
corded history.  It  would  be  interesting  to 
know  whether  man  had  any  idea  of  God  in 
that  long  prehistoric  period,  when  a  thou- 
sand years  were  but  as  a  day,  during  which 
took  place  the  distribution  of  mankind  over 
the  earth,  the  formation  of  races,  and  the 
development  of  speech  and  languages ;  but 
of  this  incalculable  8eon  of  savagery  and 
barbarism  every  trace  has  perished,  and  the 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  77 

memorials  of  the  later  prehistoric  ages  are 
confined  to  rude  tools  and  weapons. 

For  the  epoch  to  which  they  belong, 
however,  the  material  arts  may  be  taken 
as  a  fair  index  to  the  general  culture.  The 
archseologist  can  read  the  mental  status 
of  races  from  the  character  of  their  celts, 
hatchets,  awls,  and  other  implements,  or 
from  such  arts  as  cooking,  pottery,  and 
weaving.  From  this  connection  between 
the  material  and  the  mental  elements  of 
culture,  we  are  able  to  infer  with  high 
probability  that  the  religions  of  mankind 
prior  to  the  beginning  of  civilization  could 
not  have  been  higher  than  the  religions  of 
the  lowest  existing  savages.  If  such  un- 
promising germs  have  given  birth  to  the 
great  religions  of  the  world,  in  the  out- 
lying regions  of  savagery  their  develop- 
ment has  been  arrested.  Not,  of  course, 
that  even  there  the  original  features  of 
religion  have  been  preserved  altogether  un- 
impaired. But  we  may  be  sure  the  changes 
have  not  been  great,  since  the  intellectual 
condition  has  remained  unchanged.  This 
is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  higher  relig- 
ions abound  in  elements  of  the  savage 
creed,  which  can  only  be  regarded  as  sur- 


78  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

vivals  and  revivals ;  and  that  these  ele- 
ments are  the  more  apparent,  as  they  have 
been  the  more  influential,  the  farther  one 
retraces  the  history  of  religions.  While, 
therefore,  primitive  religion  is  not  to  be 
identified  with  any  existing  creed,  its  men- 
tal type,  at  least,  must  be  looked  for  in  the 
polydsemonistic  beliefs  of  savages. 

This  theory  of  the  gradual  development 
of  man's  consciousness  of  God  is  still  often 
opposed  by  the  dogma  of  a  primitive  reve- 
lation. In  one  sense  it  is  quite  true  that 
God  has  revealed  himself  to  man.  For,  as 
we  are  all  partakers  of  the  divine  life,  it 
can  only  be  the  spirit  of  God  that  gives 
us  understanding.  But  from  this  com- 
munity of  the  human  and  divine  essence 
must  be  derived  also  all  our  intellectual 
and  moral  capacities.  A  primitive  revela- 
tion of  God,  therefore,  could  only  mean 
that  God  had  endowed  man  with  the  ca- 
pacity of  apprehending  his  divine  original. 
This  capacity,  like  every  other,  is  innate, 
and  like  every  other  it  realizes  itself  only 
in  the  presence  of  appropriate  conditions. 
The  infant  knows  nothing,  but  through 
experience  and  reflection  it  is  capable  of 
knowing  everything.     To   say,  therefore, 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  79 

man  has  had  a  divine  revelation  is  tanta- 
mount to  saying  he  is  so  constituted  that, 
on  reaching  a  certain  stage  of  development 
and  traversing  a  certain  field  of  experience, 
he  must  arrive  at  a  consciousness  of  God. 
And  everything  we  know  of  the  psychol- 
ogy of  children  and  of  primitive  races 
favors  the  supposition  that  the  first  form 
of  this  consciousness  expressed  itself  in  the 
worship  of  natural  objects  conceived  as 
superhuman  persons  influencing  human 
destiny. 

This  view  of  revelation  is  perfectly  com- 
patible with  that  evolutionary  treatment 
of  religion  which  is  demanded  by  the  facts 
of  archseology  and  history,  and  (it  may  be 
added)  of  philology  and  mythology  too. 
But  so  much  cannot  be  said  for  the  dog- 
matic form  in  which  the  hypothesis  of  a 
primitive  revelation  has  crystallized  in  the 
popular  consciousness.  Here  God  is  rep- 
resented as  making  a  special  supernatural 
communication  of  religious  truth  to  certain 
favored  individuals.  The  idea  of  God  is 
brought  to  man  from  without,  by  means  of 
a  miraculous  revelation.  As,  however,  this 
pure  and  true  idea  of  God  is  not  to  be  found 
among  any  of  the  varieties  of  early  history, 


80  BELIEF  IiV  GOD. 

it  is  conjectured  that  it  was  lost  almost  as 
soon  as  it  was  gained  by  the  fall  of  primi- 
tive man  from  his  high  estate  of  sin- 
lessness.  This  solution  of  the  theistic 
problem  is  beset  by  invincible  difficulties. 
I  pass  over  the  unscientific  character  of 
the  hypothesis  and  its  dependence  upon 
arbitrary  assumption.  I  shall  not  under- 
take to  inquire  whether  the  narration  in 
the  book  of  Genesis,  which  is  supposed  to 
contain  the  primitive  revelation,  makes  any 
such  claim;  and  whether,  even  if  it  does. 
Biblical  criticism  has  not  refuted  its  preten- 
sion by  showing  that  the  record  is  no  history 
of  the  actual  beginning  of  things,  but  only 
a  reproduction  of  current  traditions  regard- 
ing that  beginning.  I  confine  myself  to  a 
single  issue,  namely,  the  psychological 
possibility  of  such  a  primitive  revelation ; 
and  I  hold  it  is  quite  inconceivable.  The 
theory  arose  when  men  knew  little  of  an- 
tiquity, when  the  golden  age  of  mankind 
was  still  believed  to  lie  at  the  beginning. 
There  was  no  more  scruple  about  assigning 
elevated  ideas  to  primitive  man  than  there 
was  in  accepting  the  belief  of  his  inter- 
course with  the  Creator.  But  modern 
discoveries  have   changed  all   that.     We 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  81 

now  know  that  our  earliest  ancestors  lived 
a  life  of  cruel  hardships,  of  constant  strug- 
gles, and  of  unimaginable  savagery,  gross- 
ness,  and  ignorance.  And  the  farther  we 
can  follow  man  back  through  that  stony 
age,  the  nearer  is  he  seen  to  approach  the 
condition  of  the  animal.  Now,  how  could 
such  an  one  apprehend  any  of  the  sublime 
truths  of  spiritual  religion,  even  if  a  teacher 
were  there  to  give  him  the  instruction? 
Learning  is  a  process  of  interpreting  the 
unknown  by  what  is  already  known.  And 
the  knowledge  of  primitive  man,  who  was 
engaged  in  an  absorbing  struggle  for  life, 
whose  experience  scarcely  got  beyond  ob- 
jects of  food,  shelter,  and  defence,  whose 
very  language  denoted  only  sensible  things 
and  events,  did  not  contain  the  elements 
necessary  for  an  assimilation  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  existence  of  one  infinite  spirit, 
even  though  one  imagined  it  poured  into 
all  the  avenues  of  his  intelligence  by  an 
external  revealer.  No,  the  teacher  is  not 
a  pump ;  the  pupil  is  not  a  tub.  And  the 
necessity  of  a  human  faculty  of  compre- 
hension cannot  be  dispensed  with  even 
when  the  Eternal  Wisdom  condescends  to 
instruction.      The   influence    of   mind   on 


82  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

mind  is  never  mechanical.  There  is  always 
self -active  co-operation.     Even 

"  A  jest's  prosperity  lies  in  the  ear 
Of  him  that  hears  it,  never  in  the  tongue 
Of  him  that  makes  it." 

And  on  this  principle  no  primitive  savage, 
no  innocent  Adam  still  merged  in  the  life 
of  nature  and  of  sense,  could  ever  con- 
struct in  thought  the  doctrine  of  God  as 
one  infinite  spirit,  even  though  we  suppose 
it  communicated  ah  extra.  It  follows, 
therefore,  that  this  idea  is  the  natural 
product  of  man's  own  mental  activities  in 
the  gradual  course  of  their  development. 

For  an  interpretation  of  the  early  re- 
ligious history  of  mankind,  which  has  first 
been  seriously  studied  in  recent  years,  we 
should  look  in  vain  to  the  unhistoric  ra- 
tionalism of  the  eighteenth  century.  In 
the  article  on  Religion  in  the  Dictionnaire 
JPhilosophique,  Voltaire  makes  monotheism 
the  primitive  religion,  and  supposes  the 
sages  of  antiquity  were  deists  like  himself. 
Yet  he  makes  a  suggestion  of  profound 
truth  and  insight  when  he  likens  the  men- 
tal attitude  of  man  in  the  infancy  of  the 
race  to  the  mental  attitude  of  our  children. 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  83 

Embryologists  tell  us  that  the  foetus  in  its 
development  passes  through  all  the  stages 
of  animal  existence,  thus  reproducing  in 
miniature  the  evolutionary  history  of  the 
species.  That  its  mental  life  after  birth 
should  also  reflect  the  mental  life  of  the 
infancy  of  mankind  is  a  corollary  that 
equally  demands  acceptance.  But  we  are 
not  dependent  upon  a  priori  reasoning  for 
our  knowledge  of  primitive  modes  of 
thought.  They  are  preserved  for  us  by 
savages;  whose  arts  show  them  to  be  on 
the  same  mental  plane  as  primitive  man- 
kind; that  is,  the  earliest  men  of  whom 
anything  is  known.  Now  observation  of 
savage  races  reveals  to  us  characteristics 
of  thought  which  we  find  also  in  our  chil- 
dren. The  most  striking  feature  perhaps 
is  the  unrestrained  tendency  to  personify 
natural  objects.  The  lowest  savage  en- 
dows everything  with  a  life  like  his  own, 
though  often  on  a  larger,  or  even  on  a 
smaller  scale.  For  him  nature  is  a  com- 
plex of  beings,  each  of  which  is  animated 
by  desires,  passions,  and  affections.  His 
attitude  towards  them  is  that  of  a  little 
girl  towards  her  dolls  and  toys  which  she 
knows    to    be    friendly    companions,    or 


84  BELIEF  IN  GOD.  ^ 

towards  new  and  strange  objects  before 
which  she  hesitates  or  from  which  she 
starts  back  in  alarm.  A  consequence  of 
this  personification  is  the  obliteration  of 
sharp  distinctions  between  one  kind  and 
another,  as  well  as  between  things  of  the 
same  kind.  Science  having  resolved  the 
universe  into  a  multiplicity  of  kinds  and 
individuals,  it  is  the  aim  of  modern  philos- 
ophy to  make  a  synthesis  of  them  under  a 
monistic  conception  of  all  existence.  But 
primitive  man,  like  the  little  child,  ignores 
our  distinctions  between  the  animate  and 
the  inanimate  kingdoms,  between  plants 
and  animals,  and  between  man  and  beast. 
The  growth  of  knowledge  has  consisted  in 
a  progress  from  the  vague  to  the  definite ; 
and  with  early  mankind  the  world  was 
as  yet  undefined  and  shadowy,  a  manifold 
blur  of  indeterminate  personalities,  all  akin 
because  all  like  himself.  This  crude  phi- 
losophy of  nature  was  also  the  theology  of 
primitive  savages.  And  it  lives  on  in  the 
lower  strata  of  civilization,  where,  though 
the  prevailing  conception  of  the  Godhead 
is  anthropomorphic,  the  list  of  gods  is 
drawn  from  all  quarters  of  the  organic 
and  inorganic   world,  including   at   once 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  85 

animals  and  trees,  sun,  moon,  and  stars, 
the  earth,  or  even  the  stones  upon  its  sur- 
face. Men,  animals,  plants,  and  natural 
objects  form  to  the  personifying  imagina- 
tion of  primitive  manl?:ind  a  unitary  kin- 
dred, any  member  of  which  might  be 
represented  as  a  god  without  prejudice  to 
the  others.  And  whether  it  was  a  personi- 
fied tree  or  stone  that  Avas  so  represented, 
it  enjoyed  the  same  rights  in  the  matter  of 
ritual,  and  exercised  the  same  influence 
and  effects  upon  its  worshippers,  as  a  god 
of  human  or  superhuman  embodiment. 

It  will  be  a  matter  for  future  investiga- 
tion, if  any,  to  determine  the  accidents  or 
caprices,  as  we  call  them,  that  led  to  the 
deification  of  certain  objects  and  not  of 
others.  That  among  many  races  the  sun 
or  the  sky  should  have  enjoyed  this  pre- 
eminence is  intelligible  enough,  and  the 
deification  of  domesticated  animals  may 
perhaps  be  explained  by  their  familiar  in- 
tercourse with  uncivilized  man ;  but  the 
larger  number  of  the  objects  of  early  wor- 
ship do  not  carry  on  their  face  the  obvious 
reasons  of  their  exaltation.  Some  external 
relation  to  the  first  worshippers  may  always 
be  conjectured.     But  suclif  casualties  can- 


86  BELIEF  /xV  GOD. 

not,  at  present  at  least,  be  ascertained. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  certain  psy- 
chological conditions  which  every  object 
of  worship  must  fulfil ;  and,  failing  these, 
no  natural  being,  even  though  personified, 
could  ever  be  transmuted  into  a  god.  First 
of  all,  the  worshipper  must  be  in  some  way 
dependent  upon  it.  It  must  be,  or  seem 
to  him  to  be,  superior  to  himself.  When 
stones,  which  were  once  worshipped  as 
mighty  giants,  came  to  be  regarded  as 
things,  worship  of  them  ceased;  for  with 
growing  control  of  natural  objects,  man 
instinctively  felt  they  were  lower  than 
himself.  An  object  of  worship  must  be 
capable  of  arousing  a  sense  of  dependence 
and  inferiority.  From  the  perception  of 
this  fundamental  relation  may  arise  two 
other  feelings,  both  of  which,  though  in 
degrees  varying  to  the  vanishing-point, 
must  be  produced  by  every  object  wor- 
shipped as  a  god.  One  of  these,  according 
to  its  shades,  we  name  fear,  awe,  or  terror; 
and  its  presence  in  the  religious  sentiment 
is  the  truth  of  the  words  of  Statins :  Pri- 
mus in  orhe  deos  fecit  timor.  But  fear 
alone  would  have  been  inadequate.  And 
we  know  that  nature,  and  even  the  very 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  87 

same  natural  objects,  which  at  one  time 
terrify  the  savage  and  the  chikl,  at  another 
time  fill  them  with  delight.  If  primitive 
man  was  scared  to  his  cave  by  the  gathering 
clouds  and  the  rattling  thunder,  he  felt 
himself  strongly  attracted  by  the  kindly 
sun,  which  rolled  majestically  across  the 
unsullied  azure.  Or,  in  sublunary  regions, 
the  rock  over  which  he  one  day  stumbles 
becomes  at  another  time  the  hiding-place 
from  which  he  takes  his  prey.  If  he  then 
dreaded  it  as  a  superior  evil  being,  he  now 
delights  in  it  as  helpful  and  beneficent. 
Thus  of  necessity  his  gods  are  objects  both 
of  his  terror  and  of  his  confidence,  either 
separately,  or,  as  e^^erience  widened,  of 
both  together.  Nor  is  there  any  incom- 
patibility in  this  union  of  fear  and  love 
of  the  same  object.  For  when  terrible 
phenomena  do  not  actually  harm  us,  we 
delight  in  their  presence,  as  tragedy  cer- 
tainly demonstrates.  Accordingly  fear  or 
awe  will  not  prevent  man's  yearning  for 
communion  or  fellowship  with  those  supe- 
rior beings  towards  which  joy,  admiration, 
or  affection  attracts  him.  And  in  this  com- 
munion with  the  powers  that  govern  his 
destiny,  we  have  another  characteristic  of 


88  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

the  earliest  as  of  the  latest  faith  in  God. 
An  actual  proof  of  the  solidarity  of  the 
life  of  gods  and  men  is  found  in  the  insti- 
tution of  sacrifice,  which  shallow  rational- 
ism has  treated  as  a  bribe  offered  by  selfish 
worshippers  to  selfish  gods,  but  which  his- 
torical investigations  prove  to  have  been 
a  common  meal  of  man  and  gods,  the 
expression  and  the  seal  of  a  community  of 
feeling,  purpose,  and  existence.  And  just 
in  so  far  as  this  relationship  of  the  deity 
to  his  worshippers  is  vividly  realized,  do 
nature  religions  take  on  an  ethical  char- 
acter. The  superhuman  kinsman  invests 
with  religious  sanctions  the  social  customs 
and  institutions  of  the  kindred  group  of 
worshippers. 

Still  it  is  probable  that  the  earliest  re- 
ligions were  neither  directly  moral  nor 
immoral, — they  were  simply  non-moral; 
and  the  sentiment  of  dependence  upon  the 
gods  and  communion  with  them  presup- 
poses a  considerable  evolution  of  intelli- 
gence. So  that  there  is  nothing  unlikely 
in  the  assumption  that  the  palseontological 
races  either  had  no  religion,  or  apprehended 
only  in  dim,  fugitive  outline  the  elements 
out  of  which  religion  was  afterwards  to 


ORIGIN  AND   DEVELOPMENT,  89 

grow.  But  when  men  did  arrive  at  a  sta- 
ble consciousness  of  the  gods,  we  cannot 
but  hold,  from  what  we  know  of  the  facts 
of  religious  history  and  the  operations  of 
undeveloped  intelligence  as  seen  in  chil- 
dren and  savages,  that  these  gods  were  per- 
sonifications of  natural  objects,  conceived 
as  superior  to  men,  and  to  some  extent,  at 
least,  as  arbiters  of  their  destiny. 

From  this  probable,  though  inferential, 
primary  consciousness  of  the  Godhead,  all 
other  phases  of  the  belief  may  be  accounted 
for  in  a  fairly  satisfactory  manner.  Evo- 
lution is  a  progress  from  the  indefinite  and 
homogeneous  to  the  definite  and  hetero- 
geneous. But  in  the  historical  world,  as 
Darwin  showed  in  the  organic,  progressive 
evolution  is  often  accompanied  by  retro- 
gression or  backward  development.  And 
it  ought  not  to  surprise  us  if,  while  the 
history  of  the  religious  consciousness  ex- 
hibits in  general  a  successive  unfolding  of 
richer  and  purer  forms,  a  different  move- 
ment is  observable  among  those  sections  of 
mankind  which  have  never  felt  the  vitaliz- 
ing breath  of  civilization.  For  the  causes 
of  civilization  are  also  the  causes  of  relig- 
ious development.     They  are  to  be  sought 


90  BELIEF  IN  GOB. 

partly  perhaps  in  the  genius  of  races  and 
of  individuals,  but  mainly,  I  suspect,  in  a 
larger  knowledge  of  nature  with  the  con- 
sequent development  of  all  the  intellectual 
faculties,  and  in  a  richer  experience  of 
social  and  political  events  and  institutions, 
which  has  the  effect  of  subduing  random 
impulses  and  self-seeking  appetencies  as 
well  as  quickening  the  activity  and  enlarg- 
ing the  range  of  conscience  and  affection. 
When  knowledge,  morality,  and  social 
order  grow,  man's  idea  of  the  Godhead 
expands  in  the  same  proportion.  Where 
they  are  stationary,  it  may  change,  but  it 
cannot  advance.  Primitive  religion,  there- 
fore, will  undergo  two  fundamental  sorts 
of  variation :  one  progressive,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  a  higher  and  fuller  content;  the 
other,  non-progressive  or,  in  very  unfavor- 
able circumstances,  even  retrogressive ;  that 
is,  farther  removed  from  actual  reality. 
The  first  gives  us  the  religions  of  historic 
races ;  the  second,  those  of  savages  and  the 
lowest  barbarians. 

The  religion  of  these  rude  peoples  may 
be  described  as  an  unorganized  polydsemon- 
ism.  It  consists  in  the  belief  in  the  exis- 
tence of  an  indefinite  and  motley  tlii^ong 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  91 

of  spirits  who  may  be  controlled  by  magic, 
which  only  rarely  rises  to  the  attitude  of 
worship.  It  is  often  designated  animism 
oifetichism;  but  the  terms  are  used  some- 
what vaguely.  This  religion  is  considered 
by  the  English  school  of  evolutionists  to 
represent  man's  earliest  consciousness  of 
the  Godhead.  But  it  almost  certainly  de- 
mands more  reflection  and  abstraction  than 
primitive  intelligence  was  capable  of.  For 
it  implies  a  clear  distinction  between  soul 
and  body,  and  the  peopling  of  nature  with 
independent  spirits.  And  this  is  much 
less  naif  and  simple  than  the  concrete  per- 
sonification of  natural  objects.  From  this 
primordial  belief  it  can  be  readily  derived, 
but  the  sequence  of  connection  cannot  be 
reversed.  The  savage  who  has  arrived 
at  the  power  of  reflecting  cannot  but  be 
struck  with  the  strange  phenomena  of 
dreams,  trances,  and  death.  We  explain 
dreams  by  the  distinction  between  objec- 
tive events  and  subjective  illusions.  But 
early  thought  knows  no  such  distinction. 
The  savage  who  dreams  he  has  gone  to  a 
distant  country  and  met  strange  inhabi- 
tants can  only  explain  the  fact  by  assum- 
ing that,  since  his   body  has  lain  all  the 


92  BELIEF  m  GOD. 

time  at  home,  his  soul  can  go  out  on  jour- 
neys of  its  own  and  bring  back  reports  of 
what  it  sees  and  encounters.  In  a  swoon 
there  seems  to  be  the  same  temporary  ab- 
sence of  the  soul.  At  death,  the  spirit 
quits  the  body  forever,  but  it  continues  to 
live  a  phantom  life  of  its  own,  and  in  this 
form  often  visits  the  survivors  in  dreams 
and  visions.  What  we  call  illusions  and 
hallucinations  the  barbaric  psychologist 
treats  as  direct  perceptions  of  spirits. 
These  subtle  essences  he  names  after  the 
breath  which  is  felt  to  be  the  life  or  soul  of 
man ;  and  even  developed  languages  like 
the  Aryan  and  Semitic  still  retain  the  traces 
of  this  early  theory  of  ghosts.  But  of 
course  not  only  men,  but  also  horses  and 
dogs,  and  not  only  animals,  but  things,  in  a 
word,  all  objects  of  organic  and  inorganic 
nature,  have  souls  which  come  and  go 
like  the  souls  of  men.  Naturally,  there- 
fore, adoration  of  spirits  supplants  the  wor- 
ship of  concrete  natural  objects.  And  of 
spirits  the*"  manes  of  departed  ancestors 
occupy  a  foremost  place.  They  are  sup- 
posed to  keep  up  their  interest  in  the  liv- 
ing, who  consult  them,  share  with  them 
secrets,  and  even  provide  them  with  food 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  93 

—  a  custom  of  which  a  survival  may  still 
be  seen  on  the  festival  of  All  Souls,  at  the 
cemetery  of  Pere-Lachaise. 

Ancestor-worship  has  been,  and  still  is, 
one  of  the  great  faiths  of  the  world.  And 
it  has  always  in  its  first  stages  made  for 
morality ;  since  the  ancestor  who  cared  for 
his  children  while  alive  would  punish  vio- 
lations of  established  customs  now  he  had 
become  a  god.  In  early  times  the  bond  of 
blood  was  the  sole  basis  of  rights  and  ob- 
ligations. Accordingly,  when  a  deity  was 
conceived  as  a  blood  relation  of  a  group  of 
kinsmen,  he  brought  to  their  social  order 
and  morality  the  superhuman  sanctions  of 
religion.  But  while  the  worship  of  the 
dead  keeps  up  the  old-fashioned  virtues  of 
the  tribe,  it  prevents  all  moral  progress; 
and  by  clinging  to  the  ethical  ideals  of  a 
society  that  has  passed  away,  it  may  in 
time  become  positively  injurious.  Yet  it 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  conception 
of  the  brotherhood  of  mankind,  which  is 
the  greatest  moment  of  progress  in  the  his- 
tory of  morality,  rests  upon  the  earlier 
fact  of  the  fraternal  relationship  which 
actually  existed  between  all  members  of 
the  kindred  clan ;  and  that  the  sentiment 


94  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

of  humanity  has  still  much  of  warmth  and 
zeal  to  borrow  from  all  the  sweet  charities 
of  parent,  child,  and  brother. 

But  the  manes  of  ancestors  are  not  the 
only  higher  spirits  which  animistic  relig- 
ions exalt  above  the  commonalty  of  souls. 
As  these  rule  over  the  life  of  man,  so 
among  the  nature-spirits  there  are  great 
gods  who  rule  the  universe.  The  highest 
natural  deity  is  apt  to  be  the  heaven-god, 
or  the  soul  of  the  sky.  But  in  savage 
religions  this  supreme  being  would  seem 
to  have  little  advantage  in  the  innumer- 
able throng  of  nature-spirits,  among  whom 
there  is  no  such  ground  of  preference  as 
ancestry  afforded  in  the  case  of  the  souls 
of  the  dead.  Indeed,  the  lowlier  spirits 
might  be  the  more  attractive  because  they 
seemed  more  manageable.  And  there  was 
no  limit  to  the  multiplication  of  deities, 
now  that  they  were  not  dependent  for  their 
being  upon  objective  reality.  At  any  rate, 
observation  of  savages,  African,  Polyne- 
sian, and  American,  shows  us  that  animis- 
tic religions  produced  an  indeterminate 
chaos  of  atomistic  divinities,  whose  limited 
powers  and  mutable  destinies  put  their 
worshippers  upon  the  idea  of  bringing  them 


OBIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  95 

into  subjection  to  human  caprice.  Hence 
the  origin  of  magic,  which  plays  so  large 
a  part  in  polydsemonistic  religions.  Fi- 
nally, as  a  spirit  might  be  domiciled,  forci- 
bly or  fortuitously,  in  any  portable  object, 
which  thereafter  served  (like  an  idol)  to 
symbolize  or  represent  it,  we  see  at  once 
the  close  connection  between  animism  and 
fetich-worship.  Fetichism  is  in  fact  the 
lowest  form  of  animism,  having  much  the 
same  relation  to  it  as  adoration  of  images 
to  worship  of  the  invisible  gods. 

The  demons  or  spirits  of  barbarous  relig- 
ions tended  to  fade  away  into  airy  noth- 
ings, the  sport  of  man's  superior  power 
and  caprice,  because  they  had  lost  that 
local  habitation  and  definite  character 
which  a  fixed  connection  with  natural 
objects  gave  them  in  earlier  thought.  But 
even  with  a  separation  of  nature-spirits 
from  the  sphere  of  their  material  embodi- 
ment, another  course  of  development  was 
also  open.  If  savages  dissipated  them  into 
empty  phantoms,  races  which  had  reached 
the  lower  stages  of  civilization  invested 
them  with  the  moral  and  spiritual  poten- 
cies of  that  life  which  the  worshippers  had 
begun  to  feel  and  lead.     It  is  written  that 


96  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

"  God  created  man  in  his  own  image  " ; 
but  it  is  no  less  true,  and  necessarily  true, 
that  human  thought  has  always  created 
God  in  the  image  of  man.  But  it  makes 
all  the  difference  in  the  world  to  theology 
what  is  regarded  as  the  essence  of  the 
human  exemplar.  Hegel  and  the  Hotten- 
tot alike  proclaim  the  affinity  of  man  and 
the  Godhead;  but  to  one  the  essence  of 
man  is  rational  spirit,  to  the  other  some 
vague,  invisible  ether.  And  the  animistic 
divinities,  in  their  fickle  and  insubstantial 
character,  reflect  the  low,  capricious,  and 
irrational  life  of  savage  tribes,  which  lacks 
that  stablishing  and  exalting  that  comes 
only  from  consecration  to  the  high  ideal 
ends  of  civilization.  On  the  other  hand, 
where  favored  clans  amalgamated  and  cre- 
ated political  institutions,  so  that  higher 
morals  and  better  manners  became  inevita- 
ble, where  knowledge  grew,  and  men  had 
a  freer  outlook  upon  the  universe,  the 
throngs  of  personified  objects  were  gener- 
alized into  great  spirits  of  nature,  which, 
though  ruling  the  world,  were  nevertheless 
brought  into  close  moral  relation  with 
mankind.  It  is  of  these  quasi-personal 
nature-spirits    that  imagination,   with  its 


OBIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  97 

eye  on  the  corresponding  natural  phenom- 
ena, weaves  the  complex  and  highly  origi- 
nal tissues  of  mythology.  The  events  of 
nature  are  co-ordinated  into  the  parts  and 
scenes  of  a  drama,  enacted  by  these  manlike 
spirits  or  powers  of  nature.  Such  mythol- 
ogies are  found  in  China,  India,  Persia, 
Nineveh,  Babylon,  Egypt,  Greece,  Italy, 
Germany,  and,  in  the  new  world,  in  Mexico 
and  Peru.  They  represent  the  gods  as 
relatively  independent  of  their  natural 
elements.  So  far  they  agree  with  animism. 
But  two  essential  differences  are  to  be 
noted.  First,  the  detachment  from  nature 
is  never  complete  (Zeus,  for  example,  al- 
ways remains  the  heaven-god) ;  for  the 
myths  and  stories  of  the  gods  and  heroes 
manifestly  grow  out  of  the  personification 
and  dramatization  of  natural  phenomena. 
And,  secondly,  there  associates  itself  to  the 
naturalistic  aspect  of  the  god  an  analogous 
spiritual  function  which  has  reference  to 
some  of  the  ideal  ends,  moral,  intellectual, 
or  political,  to  which  incipient  civilization 
has  already  devoted  itself.  It  matters  not, 
therefore,  whether  these  mythological  re- 
ligions of  early  civilization  be  designated 
polytheism   or   only  advanced  polydsemo* 


98  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

nism,  they  indicate  a  real  progress  in  the 
development  of  the  religious  consciousness 
of  mankind.  The  progress,  however,  is  not 
to  be  measured  by  the  richness  or  grace  of 
mythologies  (which  certainly  reflect  the 
imagination  of  their  makers),  but  by  the 
nature  of  all  those  ends,  moral  and  spirit- 
ual, in  the  realization  of  which  the  worship- 
ping races  have  recognized  their  supreme 
historical  mission,  and  in  relation  to  which, 
therefore,  they  could  not  but  fashion  the 
character  of  the  gods  who  presided  over 
their  destiny. 

For  proof  and  illustration  of  this  position 
let  us  look  for  a  little  while  at  the  concep- 
tions of  the  Godhead  reached  respectively  in 
the  religions  of  the  Indo-Germanic  and  the 
Semitic  races.  These  great  races  are  the 
bearers  of  civilization.  To  the  first  belong 
the  Indians,  the  Persians,  the  Letto-Slavs, 
the  Germans,  the  Greeks,  the  Romans, 
and  the  Kelts.  The  latter  includes  the 
Arabs,  the  Hebrews,  the  Phoenicians,  the 
Aramseans,  the  Babylonians,  and  the  As- 
syrians. The  mere  collocation  of  these 
great  historic  names  is  enough  to  remind 
you  that  I  can  attempt  only  the  slightest 
sketch  of  the  development  of  their  ideas  of 
the  Godhead. 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.  99 

As  comparative  philology  has  proved 
that  all  the  Indo-Germanic  races  once  pos- 
sessed the  same  language,  so  more  recently 
has  the  identity  of  their  original  religion 
been  established  by  comparative  mythol- 
ogy. This  religion  bears  the  clearest  im- 
press of  its  naturalistic  origin.  And  sub- 
lime, as  in  the  main  it  is,  it  has  not 
altogether  escaped  the  deteriorating  ten- 
dency to  animism.  Still  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  derived  its  god  from  celestial 
phenomena.  They  are  the  "shining  ones." 
Chief  among  them  was  the  heaven-father, 
the  Zeus  and  Jupiter  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  who  was,  however,  partially  sup- 
planted in  Indian  worship,  and  altogether 
transformed  in  character  by  the  Germans. 
Of  the  Indian  development  of  this  old 
Aryan  religion,  we  have  a  picture  in  the 
Vedas.  What  characterizes  Vedic  religion 
is  the  moralization  of  the  original  powers 
of  the  sky.  The  heaven-god,  Varuna,  who 
created  and  upholds  all  things,  is  the  sus- 
tainer,  not  only  of  the  order  of  the  uni- 
verse, but  of  moral  law  in  the  life  of  man. 
He  punishes  iniquities,  transgressions,  and 
sins ;  but  to  the  humble  and  contrite  he  is 
gracious   and    forgiving.      The    heavenly 


100  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

brightness  of  the  god's  material  embodi- 
ment is  the  objective  side  of  his  inner 
wisdom  and  purity  of  character.  And 
this  feature  of  the  Vedic  consciousness  of 
the  Godhead  is  the  natural  result  of  an 
infusion  of  the  old  Aryan  light-gods  with 
the  spiritual  ends  to  which  Indian  culture 
had  already  devoted  itself.  The  evolution 
is  clearer  in  the  case  of  Yaruna  than  in 
the  case  of  Indra,  the  storm-god,  or  Agni, 
the  fire-god,  or  Aditya,  the  sun-god.  Yet, 
according  to  the  hymns,  Indra  was  to  be 
approached  in  faith.  And  Agni  was  the 
typical  heavenly  priest,  the  mediator  be- 
tween gods  and  men,  ruler  and  helper  of 
the  sacrifice.  In  this  pantheon  Varuna 
seems  in  himself  to  be  the  highest  god; 
but  the  deity  actually  worshipped  is,  for 
the  time  being,  regarded  as  chief,  to  whom 
all  the  rest  are  subject.  This  monarchy  in 
a  democracy,  ephemeral  as  is  the  monarch's 
reign,  appears  to  betoken  an  endeavor  of 
the  human  spirit  to  rise  from  multiplicity 
to  unity  in  its  conception  of  the  deity. 

The  Vedic  religion  was  followed  by 
Brahminism,  a  system  of  caste  and  sacer- 
dotalism. It  made  little  change  in  the 
theology  of  the  people.     But  it  gave  birth 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.         101 

to  schools  of  philosophy,  whose  esoteric 
doctrines  overcame  the  polytheism  of  the 
masses  by  identifying  the  world  with  the 
divinity,  or  making  him  its  creator,  or  even 
by  denying  altogether  its  objective  reality. 
In  this  uncontrolled  tide  of  profound 
but  fruitless  speculation,  we  find  side  by 
side  the  types  and  elements  of  much  later 
thought:  the  hylozoism  and  pantheism  of 
the  Greeks,  Christian  theism,  the  mysti- 
cism of  Bohme,  the  acosmism  of  Spinoza, 
the  ethical  atheism  of  Fichte,  and  the  ab- 
solute idealism  of  Hegel.  Of  these  forms 
of  monistic  speculation,  the  best  known, 
though  probably  not  the  earliest,  is  that 
which  makes  Brahma  the  world-germ,  the 
womb  of  all  existence.  But  this  impersonal 
being  is  himself,  without  form  or  attributes, 
a  mere  indeterminate  unity.  And  those 
who  have  reached  the  "  higher  knowledge  " 
see  that  this  seemingly  real  world  he  has 
produced  is  nothing  but  an  illusion,  a  phan- 
tasmagoria (Maja).  Alongside  of  this  or- 
thodox theology  of  the  Brahmins  we  find 
the  heretical  system  of  Sankhya.  It  denies 
the  unity  of  the  world-soul ;  and  substitutes 
for  it  a  plurality  of  individual  souls  and 
matter.     But   the  outcome  is  not  unlike 


102  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

that  of  the  Vedanta  doctrine  of  Brahma. 
For  the  soul  does  nothing ;  it  only  knows. 
And  the  world  is  an  illusion,  the  ground  of 
which  lies  in  primordial  matter.  The  prac- 
tical result,  therefore,  of  the  two  schools, 
as  of  all  Brahminic  speculation,  was  the 
self -alienation  of  the  spirit  from  nature. 
But  in  this  divorce  from  the  real  object  of 
his  knowledge,  nothing  was  left  for  man 
but  mystic  introspection,  absorption  in  him- 
self, which  was  also  regarded  as  union  with 
God.  In  speculative  repudiation  of  the 
things  of  sense,  in  monastic  renunciation 
of  the  world,  in  mystic  fusion  of  the  self 
with  the  eternal  Brahma,  who  neither  acts 
nor  suffers,  lay  the  chief  end  and  the  re- 
demption of  man. 

But  this  deliverance  could  only  be  for 
the  elect.  Buddhism,  which  followed  the 
philosophy  of  the  Brahmins,  was  a  simple 
gospel  of  universal  redemption.  It  was 
the  first  national  religion  to  become  inter- 
national or  universal :  a  position  which  has 
since  been  attained  only  by  Christianity  and 
Mohammedanism,  Like  these.  Buddhism 
is  steeped  with  the  personality  of  its 
founder.  His  relation  to  Brahminism, 
from  which  came  his  contemplative  ascet- 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.         103 

icism,  is  much  the  same  as  that  of  Jesus  to 
Judaism.  It  would  be  too  much,  however, 
to  say  that  the  Brahmins  were  as  the  scribes 
and  Pharisees.  Yet  Buddha  rejects  their 
entire  system  of  tradition,  legalism,  wor- 
ship, and  penance.  But  whereas  Jesus 
proclaims  that  God  is  spirit  and  father, 
Buddha  relegates  the  doctrine  of  the  God- 
head to  those  metaphysical  speculations 
which  make  not  for  pious  conversation, 
nor  unworldliness,  nor  the  destruction  of 
desire,  nor  ceasing,  nor  rest,  nor  knowl- 
edge, nor  Nirvana.  His  is  a  religion 
without  God.  It  is  an  ethical  evangel 
to  all  the  suffering  sons  of  humanity. 
Buddha  has  read  the  world-secret  of  the 
necessity  of  pain,  and  offers  a  way  of  re- 
demption. Change  is  the  law  of  the  uni- 
verse. As  soon  as  an  act  of  will  relieves 
man  from  the  pain  of  one  desire,  another 
has  taken  its  place,  so  that  endless  pain  is 
the  consequence  of  volition.  The  will, 
therefore,  must  be  extinguished.  And  its 
extinction  is  brought  about  by  insight  into 
that  law  of  change  which  makes  all  desire 
for  happiness  self-defeating.  This  is  the 
redemption  offered  by  Buddhism,  as  it  is 
the  essence  of  Schopenhauer's  pessimism. 


104  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

Nirvana  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  that 
quiescent  state  of  consciousness  in  which 
desire  has  been  extinguished  and  the  will 
is  at  rest.  It  was  not  so  much  this  doc- 
trine, however,  as  the  gracious  personality 
of  the  man  who  first  realized  it,  that  made 
Buddhism  one  of  the  world's  great  creeds. 
Not,  in  fact,  until  it  had  really  become  a 
religion  by  the  strange  irony  of  making  its 
founder  a  god,  did  Buddhism  move  the 
heart  and  subdue  the  intellect  of  oriental 
nations.  But  it  could  not  become  the 
faith  of  the  more  progressive  branches  of 
the  Aryan  family.  It  negated  their  strug- 
gles for  advancement  by  systematically 
turning  away  from  the  world.  When  its 
first  mighty  wave  of  universal  compassion 
had  spent  itself.  Buddhism  settled  down 
to  resignation,  to  quietism,  to  indiiference, 
to  the  despairing  scepticism  that  comes 
from  the  absence  of  a  positive  ideal  of  life. 
Though  sharing  with  Christianity  a  com- 
mon point  of  departure  in  the  idea  and 
felt  need  of  redemption,  it  lacks  the  Chris- 
tian conception  of  the  kingdom  of  God  in 
which  the  yearnings  of  the  spirit  find  com- 
plete satisfaction,  and  that,  too,  through  the 
fulness  of  a  life  which  is  the  very  opposite 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.         105 

of  the  Buddhist  panacea,  —  self-annihila- 
tion. 

When  Buddha  had  been  deified,  and  his 
appearance  on  earth  explained  as  one  of  a 
series  of  incarnations,  Brahminism  regained 
its  hold  upon  the  masses,  which  had  been 
greatly  relaxed  through  its  conflict  with 
Buddhism,  by  finding  gods  adapted  to  the 
popular  consciousness  in  the  two  surviving 
elemental  deities,  Vishnu  and  Siva.  These 
the  Brahmins  set  by  the  side  of  their  own 
god  Brahma.  And  the  philosophical  de- 
mand for  unity  was  met  by  treating  all 
three  as  manifestations  of  the  one  primor- 
dial god,  Brahma.  And  not  only  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  but  the  doctrine  of  the 
God-man,  was  also  familiar  to  later  Brah- 
minism. The  avatars  of  Vishnu,  whose 
presence  in  an  individual  made  that  indi- 
vidual very  god  while  still  leaving  him 
very  man,  were  numerous  and  various. 
But  the  most  important  was  Vishnu's  in- 
carnation in  Krishna.  And  Krishna  be- 
came in  Brahminism  the  rival  of  the  deified 
founder  in  Buddhism,  a  divine  saviour,  an 
incarnation  (though  but  one  of  many)  of 
the  highest  godhead. 

If  among  the  Indians  the  old  Aryan  the- 


106  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

ology  developed  into  a  mystic  and  dream- 
ing metaphysic  with  an  ascetic  ethic,  among 
their  cousins,  the  Iranians,  who  dwelt  be- 
tween mountains  and  deserts  in  a  somewhat 
harsh  climate,  there  Avere  preserved,  along 
with  the  ancient  hardihood  and  valor,  the 
simplicity  of  earlier  thought  and  the  prac- 
ticalness of  earlier  morality.  The  Iranian 
religion,  which  in  later  centuries  became 
the  state  religion  of  Persia,  is  known  as 
Mazdeism  or  Parseeism,  and  was  ascribed 
to  the  reformation  of  Zoroaster.  To  the 
Brahminist  doctrine  of  the  illusoriness  of 
the  world  and  the  motionless  indifference 
of  the  one  real  existence,  Mazdeism  opposed 
the  conception  of  a  universal  world-struggle 
in  which  the  ever-living  and  active  god- 
head was  engaged  in  overcoming  those 
limitations  to  his  absoluteness,  which,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  seem  actually  existent  and 
operative.  Virtue,  therefore,  could  not  be 
placed  in  quietism  and  renunciation  of  the 
world,  but  only  in  action  and  struggle,  and 
the  victory  over  the  world  which  they  en- 
sure. 

Mazdeism  inclines  both  to  polytheism 
and  monotheism.  It  exalted  far  above  the 
pantheon  of  lower  divinities  Ahura-mazda, 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.         lOT 

the  all-wise  .lord  or  spirit.  The  name 
Aliura  indicates  a  connection  with  Asura, 
the  heaven-god  of  the  Hindoos.  Ahura  is 
glorified  as  the  creator  of  the  world,  and 
the  source  of  truth,  light,  and  purity.  The 
doctrine  of  his  sublime  supremacy  was,  it 
is  probable,  the  chief  element  in  the  preach- 
ing of  Zoroaster.  But  with  the  survival 
of  old  Aryan  nature-gods,  the  doctrine  was 
liable  to  corruption.  And  in  fact  not  only 
these,  but  new  personifications  also,  some 
of  them  quite  ideal,  were  grouped  about  or 
under  the  supreme  Ahura.  First  came  the 
circle  of  the  "  sacred  immortals,"  consisting 
of  Ahura  and  six  spirits,  who  seem  to  be 
personifications  of  abstract  ideas  (such,  for 
example,  as  purity,  wisdom,  immortality), 
though  in  some  cases  a  sensuous  reference 
is  also  discernible.  Beyond  these  was  the 
lower  and  larger  circle  of  the  "worshipful" 
spirits.  They  consisted  partly  of  old  Aryan 
light-gods,  and  partly  of  fresh  creations  out 
of  abstract  notions.  Of  the  latter  sort  was 
the  personification  of  prayer  as  a  divine 
logos  or  creative  word.  Last  in  the  de- 
scending scale  of  good  spirits  came  the 
"  genii,"  the  souls  of  the  dead  and  the  im- 
mortal part  of  the  living.     They  prove  that 


108  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

Mazdeism  had  not  altogether  outgrown  the 
animism  of  ruder  peoples. 

The  same  influence,  combined  with  the 
opposition  between  light  and  darkness,  may 
help  us  to  understand  the  dualism  of  this 
religion.  For  while  it  teaches  adoration 
only  of  Ahura  and  the  good  spirits  who  do 
his  pleasure,  it  recognizes  the  existence  of 
a  kingdom  of  evil  spirits,  subject  to  Ahri- 
man,  the  "  striker  "  or  "  attacker,"  who  is 
the  opponent  of  Ahura,  and  the  source  of 
all  the  evil,  sin,  and  imperfection  in  the 
world.  The  good  spirits  dwell  in  heaven 
above,  the  evil  spirits  in  the  lower  regions. 
And  this  world,  which  lies  between  the 
two,  is,  as  in  the  cosmography  of  Paradise 
Lost,  the  scene  of  their  conflict.  The  war- 
fare rages  everywhere,  and  in  everything. 
It  was  Ahriman  who  brought  death  into 
the  world,  and  seduced  the  first  pair  to 
sin.  With  his  deviltries  he  compasses  man 
about  on  every  side.  And  though  Maz- 
deism knows  nothing  of  a  fall  among  the 
angels,  Ahriman  in  all  other  respects  may 
be  compared  with  Milton's  Satan.  It  was 
only  in  late  times  he  rose  to  the  rank  of 
Ahura  himself.  Originally  he  was  a  subor- 
dinate power,  and  his  sole  function  was  to 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.        109 

thwart,  obstruct,  and  pervert  the  good  and 
wise  ends  of  the  great  creator  and  ruler 
of  the  world.  Man  seeks  protection  against 
him  in  worship.  At  death  the  good  walk 
across  the  bridge  to  heaven,  while  the 
wicked,  finding  it  too  narrow,  tumble  into 
the  depths  of  hell,  where  demons  torment 
them  till  the  fire  of  the  great  judgment 
burns  up  Ahriman  and  all  the  evil  in  ex- 
istence. From  the  flames  rise  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth,  refined  and  purified  by  the 
consuming  fire.  Over  this  transfigured 
universe,  in  which  the  dead  shall  have 
been  resuscitated  (sinners  being  purged 
and  quickened  to  a  new  life),  Ahura- 
Mazda,  in  the  presence  of  a  glorified  and 
redeemed  humanity,  is  to  reign  forevermore 
in  undisputed  supremacy.  But  this  con- 
summation will  not  come  for  three  thou- 
sand years,  and  then  only  at  the  hand  of  a 
saviour  who  is  to  be  conceived  of  the  holy 
spirit  of  Zoroaster,  and  born  of  a  virgin 
mother. 

The  germs  of  the  dualism  of  the  Persians 
and  of  the  polytheism  of  the  Hindoos  are 
to  be  found  in  the  theology  of  the  Wends 
or  Letto-Slavs,  which  is,  however,  the  low- 
est of  all  the  Indo-Germanic  religions.    Its 


110  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

nature-gods  have  not  yet  been  moralized. 
Its  doctrine  of  spirits  is  scarcely  above  the 
level  of  the  animism  of  savages,  if  we  dis- 
regard its  more  poetic  expression.  When 
it  was  supplanted  by  Christianity,  it  was 
still  at  a  stage  of  development  greatly  infe- 
rior to  that  attained  by  the  oldest  Vedic 
religion. 

It  seems  to  be  due  rather  to  a  difference 
of  race  than  of  civilization  that  religion 
attained  a  higher  development  among  the 
Germans  than  among  the  Slavs.  The  supe- 
riority attaches,  however,  only  to  their  con- 
ception of  the  gods :  their  doctrine  of  the 
soul  and  immortality,  as  well  as  their  rude 
cultus,  being  obviously  a  continuation  of 
animism.  Germanic  theology  resembles 
Persian.  While  the  Letto-Slavs,  in  com- 
mon with  all  the  Aryan  nations,  conceived 
of  a  dual  conflict  between  the  powers  of 
nature,  the  Persians  and  Germans  alone 
gave  to  the  physical  occurrence  an  ethical 
interpretation.  The  terrible  forces  of  the 
natural  world,  which  were  at  first  pictured 
as  giants  devoid  of  moral  character,  devel- 
oped in  course  of  time  into  evil  beings, 
who  stood  opposed  to  the  good  deities. 
These  last,  of  whom  Odin  and  Thor  were 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.        Ill 

the  chief,  were  also  personified  powers  of 
nature;  but  they  were  nature-gods  who 
had  been  humanized  and  moralized.  In 
the  conflict  with  the  giants,  the  good  dei- 
ties are  victorious  till  the  death  of  Balder. 
Afterwards  the  monsters  of  wickedness 
break  forth  in  uncontrolled  fury,  and  over- 
whelm all  the  ordinances  and  appointments 
of  the  world.  This  is  the  "  twilight  of  the 
gods."  They  struggle  against  this  general 
dissolution  of  the  elements,  but  in  the  end 
they  perish  with  their  assailants.  Then 
comes  the  final  act  of  this  great  world- 
drama,  —  a  general  resurrection,  renova- 
tion, and  purification,  after  which  man 
lives  a  life  of  unalloyed  happiness,  and  the 
supremacy  of  the  highest  god  continues 
undisputed. 

It  was  not  on  Oriental  or  Germanic,  but 
on  Hellenic  soil,  that  the  spirit  of  the  Aryan 
race  produced  its  richest  mythology  and  its 
highest  religion.  This  superior  develop- 
ment is  doubtless  due  to  that  unique  com- 
plex of  circumstances  which  enabled  the 
Greeks,  if  not  absolutely  to  create,  at  least 
to  invest  with  full  life  and  perfect  form, 
the  main  branches  of  human  culture,  —  art, 
science,  literature,  and  philosoDhy^  —  and 


112  BELIEF  IK  GOD. 

to  infuse  into  conduct  and  the  modes  of 
social  intercourse  a  grace  and  decorum,  a 
freedom  and  dignity,  which  are  quite  as 
characteristic  of  the  Hellenic  spirit  as 
its  intellectual  and  aesthetic  achievements. 
The  genius  of  this  remarkable  people  com- 
bined in  a  wonderful  degree  the  most 
prominent  and  even  opposite  characteris- 
tics of  human  nature.  They  were  at  once 
practical  and  speculative,  lovers  of  beauty 
and  lovers  of  truth,  healthfully  realistic, 
yet  passionately  devoted  to  the  ideal,  appre- 
ciative of  the  individual,  yet  bent  on  seeing 
the  individual  in  relation  to  the  whole. 
No  doubt,  too,  their  bright  air  and  sky,  as 
well  as  the  wonderfully  varied  features  of 
their  country,  have  left  an  impress  upon 
their  religion.  But  much  greater  was  the 
influence  of  free  intercourse  among  them- 
selves and  with  their  foreign  neighbors,  — 
an  intercourse  pre-determined  and  facili- 
tated by  their  location  on  the  islands  and 
coasts  which,  like  an  irregular  bridge,  con- 
nect Europe  and  Asia.  Who  can  estimate 
the  beneficent  results  of  intercourse  between 
man  and  man  ?  To  take  only  one  example, 
it  may  be  said  to  have  moralized  the  race. 
Within  historic  times  we  can  see,  in  con- 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.         113 

sequence  of  intercourse,  the  narrow  mo- 
rality of  the  tribe  expanding  to  the  broad 
code  of  a  multitribal  nation ;  and  in  recent 
centuries  the  same  agency  has  been  making 
national  morality  international  and  human- 
itarian. Naturally  enough,  then,  it  has 
been  regarded  as  a  law  of  the  history  of 
religions  that  the  richness  and  elevation 
of  their  context  are  proportional  to  racial 
and  inter-racial  intercourse. 

Of  this  law  Greek  religion  is  a  striking 
example.  In  the  Pelasgic  period  its  gods 
were  still  nature-powers,  and  its  worship, 
to  some  extent,  fetichistic.  Yet  through 
assimilation  and  fusion  of  foreign  ideas, 
many  of  them  Semitic,  the  Greeks  formed, 
in  very  early  times,  a  circle  of  divinities 
and  heroes,  ennobled  by  all  that  is  best, 
highest,  and  most  divine  in  man.  Our 
earliest  picture  of  this  pantheon  is  con- 
tained in  the  Homeric  poems.  The  gods 
appear  as  superhuman  beings,  Avho  share 
with  man  intelligence  and  moral  freedom, 
but  not  less  appetites,  passions,  and  all  the 
weaknesses  flesh  is  heir  to.  But  a  deeper 
view  reveals  a  distinction  between  the 
gods  of  poetic  mythology  and  the  supreme 
rulers  of  the  world.     For,  however  human 


114  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

in  their  failings  the  individual  gods  show 
themselves,  they  stand  forth  in  their  total- 
ity as  the  inviolable  upholders  of  moral  or- 
der, the  sublime  judges  and  avengers  of  the 
acts  of  men.  And  this  twofold  aspect  is 
especially  observable  in  Zeus,  who  compre- 
hends in  his  own  potent  will  the  will  of 
the  Olympian  council,  of  which  he  is  the 
chief.  Like  the  Christian  pope,  Zeus  is 
conceived  in  the  Homeric  poems  to  be  fal- 
lible as  an  individual,  but  infallible  as  head 
of  the  sacred  convocation.  And  the  anal- 
ogy happily  illustrates  his  relation  to  the 
other  gods,  who  are  scarcely  more  than 
representatives  and  executives  of  the  su- 
preme ruler  of  gods  and  men.  Yet  this 
divine  monarchy  is  not  to  be  identified  with 
monotheism.  For,  though  the  Greek  be- 
lieved in  a  single  government  of  the  world, 
and  was  persuaded  that  a  stern  justice  pre- 
sided over  the  affairs  of  men,  he  found  no 
difficulty  in  the  supposition  that  it  was 
administered  by  a  plurality  of  gods.  There 
was  a  unity  of  result  without  a  unity  of 
personal  agency.  Here  we  touch  a  striking 
difference  between  Greek  and  Jewish  the- 
ology. When  Plutarch  blamed  the  Jews 
for  not  making  the  Deity  benevolent  and 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.         115 

friendly  to  man,  he  showed  a  right  sense  of 
the  importance  of  goodness  in  man's  con- 
ception of  the  divine  character,  but  he 
betrayed  utter  indifference  to  the  sublime 
Judaic  thought  of  the  unity  of  God.  It 
must  be  added,  however,  that  the  greatest 
dangers  to  Greek  religion  came  rather  from 
anthropomorphism  than  from  polytheism. 
It  was  no  easy  thing  to  worship  in  spirit 
and  in  truth  gods  whom  tradition,  poetry, 
and  statuary  had  invested  Avith  definite 
human  forms. 

The  post-Homeric  development  of  popu- 
lar theology  in  Greece  consisted  mainly  of 
a  purification  and  deepening  of  the  ethical 
character  of  the  Homeric  divinities.  Its 
most  significant  phase  was  the  exaltation 
of  Apollo,  originally  a  light-god,  to  the 
rank  of  divine  author  of  all  moral,  intellec- 
tual, and  religious  illumination  and  purifi- 
cation. He  became  the  embodiment  of  the 
ideal  ends  of  life,  —  of  the  true,  the  beauti- 
ful, and  the  good.  Of  the  clarifying  and 
ennobling  influence  of  his  worship  we  may 
form  an  idea  from  the  lofty  and  fervid 
odes  of  Pindar.  Yet  Apollo  is  not  su- 
preme god ;  he  is  son  of  Zeus,  and  media- 
tor and  saviour  of  men.     Of  Zeus  himself 


116  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

Pindar's  conception  is  practically  monothe- 
istic. But  ^schylus  reproduces  the  Ho- 
meric thought  of  a  fate  to  which  even 
Zeus  himself  is  subject.  And  he  illustrates 
both  the  older  view  of  the  implacable  jus- 
tice of  the  god,  who  visited  the  iniquities 
of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  even  to 
the  third  and  fourth  generation,  and  the 
serene  piety  of  the  age  of  Pericles,  which 
mitigated  the  wrath  of  heaven  and  trans- 
formed the  envy  and  jealousy  of  the  gods 
into  love,  tenderness,  and  forgiving  mercy. 
The  best  exponent,  however,  of  this  highest 
stage  of  Greek  religion  is  Sophocles.  He, 
too,  is  full  of  reverence  for  Zeus.  But  the 
divine  government,  instead  of  being  an 
object  of  fear  and  awe,  is  interpreted  in 
a  spirit  of  cheerful  piety,  trustful  resigna- 
tion, and  heartfelt  and  simple  devotion. 
It  is  already  seen  that  God  is  love,  and 
that,  as  in  the  (Edipus  Coloneus,  there  is 
reconciliation  for  even  the  chief  of  sinners. 
This  ethical  monotheism  of  the  choicest 
spirits  of  the  Greeks  was  in  all  probability 
above  the  reach  of  the  multitude.  Yet  it 
necessarily  influenced  their  thinking,  even 
though  an  unapproachable  ideal.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  metaphysical  panthe- 


ORWrn  AND  DEVELOPMENT.         117 

ism  which  dominated  Greek  philosophy 
throughout  its  entire  course  of  a  thousand 
years.  As  monotheism  was  the  outcome 
of  the  Greek  conception  of  God  as  gov- 
ernor of  the  workl  and  supporter  of  moral 
order,  pantheism  was  the  doctrine  in  which 
the  philosophers  found  an  ultimate  prin- 
ciple for  the  interpretation  of  the  universe 
as  a  whole.  The  Deity  is  regarded  as  the 
soul  of  the  cosmos,  and  conceived  now 
materialistically,  now  ideally,  and  again 
in  both  fashions,  without  any  conscious- 
ness of  their  distinction.  The  theology  of 
Aristotle,  indeed,  is  an  abstract  monothe- 
ism, but  the  outspoken  pantheism  of  the 
Stoics  is  much  truer  to  the  spirit  of  Greek 
speculation.  And  though  we  cannot  here 
trace  the  influence  of  Greek  philosophy 
upon  Christian  theology,  one  point  of 
juncture  may  be  noted.  The  soul  or  rea- 
son of  the  world,  which  the  Stoics  desig- 
nated "  Logos,"  became  in  the  mediating 
philosophy  of  the  Jewish  Philo  (30  B.C.- 
50  A.D.)  the  most  universal  intermediary 
between  God  and  man,  nay,  the  first-born 
son  of  God,  the  second  God,  —  thus  sup- 
plying early  Christianity  with  the  Hellenic 
formula:  "In  the  beginning  was  the  Lo- 


118  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

gos,  and  tlie  Logos  was  with  God,  and  tlie 
Logos  was  God." 

It  now  remains  to  describe  briefly  the 
character  of  Semitic  religions,  of  which 
Christianity  was  the  noble  fruitage.  In 
former  times  the  differences  between  Se- 
mitic and  Aryan  religions  were  supposed 
to  be  original  and  fundamental.  But  more 
recent  investigations,  conducted  in  the 
light  of  a  fuller  knowledge  of  primitive 
thought  and  culture,  make  it  highly  prob- 
able that  the  two  races  began  on  lines 
which  were  scarcely  distinguishable.  Yet 
from  a  very  early  period  two  differences 
—  one  psychological,  the  other  historical — 
must  have  tended  to  produce  divergency 
of  development.  As  between  the  demands 
of  the  heart  and  the  head  the  Semites  were 
disposed  to  satisfy  the  former,  the  Aryans 
the  latter ;  as  soon,  that  is  to  say,  as  cul- 
ture had  advanced  far  enough  to  bring  out 
the  consciousness  of  their  antithesis.  And 
even,  unconsciously,  the  Aryan  eye  was 
turned  outward,  the  Semitic  inward;  the 
one  seeing  nature-gods  rather  than  free 
spirits,  the  other  inclining  in  the  oppo- 
site direction  to  animism.  Hence  every 
Semitic  clan  had  its  deity,  who  was  the 


ORIGIN-  AND  DmrELOP-MENT.        119 

counterpart,  not  of  the  forces  and  aspects 
of  nature,  but  of  the  longings  and  wants 
of  the  worshippers.  Such  was  the  inti- 
mate and  exclusive  relation  .between  Bel 
and  the  Babylonians,  Baal  and  the  Canaan- 
ites,  Chemosh  and  the  Moabites,  Dagon 
and  the  Philistines,  and,  in  €arly  times, 
Jehovah  and  the  Hebrews.  Of  course  this 
distinction  is  not  to  \>q  carried  so  far  as 
to  exclude  all  objective  or  cosmic  features 
from  Semitic  theology.  On  the  contrary, 
star-worship  is  a  characteristic  of  it.  Yet 
it  remains  true  that,  as  the  Semites  have 
never  distinguished  themselves  in  objective 
science,  so  their  theology  is  prevailingly 
subjective.  Their  adoration  of  the  supra- 
mundane  powers  expresses  their  sense  of 
the  exalted  character  of  the  divinity,  and 
of  man's  absolute  dependence  upon  him. 
This  feature  of  Semitic  religion  —  its  rec- 
ognition of  a  celestial  Lord  over  nature, 
before  whom  man  is  very  dust  —  is  proba- 
bly due  to  the  historical  circumstance  that 
the  Semites,  unlike  so  many  branches  of 
the  Aryan  family,  never  attained  to  politi- 
cal freedom,  and  could  therefore  only  con- 
ceive of  the  divine  government  after  the 
analogy   of   the    despot's   relation    to    his 


120  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

enslaved  subjects.  In  this  conjunction  of 
religion  with  a  despotic  monarchy  may 
also  be  found  an  explanation  of  the  sup- 
posed innate  tendency  of  the  Semites  to 
monotheism.  This  certainly  it  is  which 
makes  the  Hebrews  appear  monotheists 
prior  to  the  Babylonian  captivity. 

Among  the  Semites,  as  elsewhere,  mono- 
theism is  the  gradual  achievement  of  the 
human  spirit.  The  ancient  religion  of  the 
Arabs  was  a  mixture  of  nature-worship, 
animism,  and  fetichism.  And  these  ele- 
ments lived  on  even  after  Mohammed, 
transplanting  to  Arabian  soil  the  kernel  of 
Judaism,  founded  Islam  with  the  formula  : 
"  There  is  no  God  but  God,  and  Moham- 
med is  his  prophet."  Indeed,  Islam  has 
become  a  universal  religion  only  by  the 
admission  of  extraneous  beliefs  and  prac- 
tices which  are  more  akin  to  animism 
than  to  monotheism;  namely,  the  adoration 
of  the  saints  and  the  worship  of  Moham- 
med himself  as  divine  mediator  with  Allah. 
In  the  case  of  the  Northern  Semites  the  re- 
ligious development  was  at  an  early  period 
much  more  rapid.  This  was  due  to  inter- 
course with  non-Semitic  peoples.  Thus 
the  inscriptions  show  the  Babylonio-Assyr- 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.         121 

ian  pantheon  to  have  been  derived  from 
the  theology  of  the  Akkadians,  a  people 
who  in  very  remote  times  occupied  Meso- 
potamia, where  they  originated  astronomy 
and  invented  the  cuneiform  writing.  Even 
among  the  Semites  in  Syria,  Canaan,  and 
Phoenicia,  the  purely  Semitic  ideas  are  ob- 
scured by  foreign  deposits.  The  gods  fell 
into  two  classes,  male  and  female  ;  and  the 
generic  names  by  which  they  were  denoted 
—  Baal  and  Ashtoreth  —  must  have  come 
from  Chaldea.  It  was  at  any  rate  a  licen- 
tious religion,  as  was  inevitable  from  the 
sexual  analogy  on  which  its  theology  was 
based.  But  so  little  is  yet  definitively  es- 
tablished regarding  the  evolution  of  the 
religious  spirit  of  the  Semites  among  these 
branches  of  the  race  that  no  apology  is 
needed  for  turning  to  the  Hebrews. 

The  Hebrews,  like  other  Semitic  clans, 
had  their  tribal  god,  who  helped  them 
against  their  enemies,  gave  oracles  for  the 
guidance  of  their  national  affairs,  and  de- 
livered judgments  in  cases  too  difficult  for 
human  decision.  As  the  Ammonite  had 
Milcom  and  the  Moabite  Chemosh,  so 
Israel  had  his  Jehovah.  It  was  through 
hard  fighting  that  the  Canaanite  was  di'iven 


122  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

out  of  the  promised  land.  Jehovah,  there- 
fore, was  primarily  a  god  of  war.  The 
very  name  Israel  means  "God  fighteth"; 
and  this  defender  of  his  people  is  desig- 
nated the  Jehovah  of  the  armies  of  Israel. 
After  their  settlement  in  Canaan  and  their 
adoption,  at  the  hands  of  the  conquered,  of 
an  agricultural  life,  the  Israelites  naturally 
imitated,  in  their  service  of  Jehovah,  the 
luxurious  festivals  which  the  Canaanites 
held  in  honor  of  Baal.  And  in  fact  the 
two  gods  were  almost  identified  by  the 
masses.  Even  the  most  devout  worship- 
pers claimed  only  a  supremacy  for  Jehovah. 
But  the  religion  of  Israel  was  saved  from 
extinction  by  numerous  wars,  which,  as 
they  intensified  national  feeling,  revived 
the  faith  in  which  it  centred  and  out  of 
which  it  sprang,  Jehovah  was  the  bond 
of  national  unity  among  the  Israelites.  He 
had  delivered  them  from  bondage;  and 
with  the  priceless  boon  of  freedom,  he  had 
given  them,  in  the  Ten  Words,  a  law  of 
social  righteousness.  They  had  a  national 
destiny  and  a  national  god.  In  peace  and 
prosperity  they  might  yield  to  the  sensuous 
attractions  of  the  Canaanite  worship.  But 
in  battle  they  felt  themselves  again   the 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.         123 

host  of  Jehovah.  And  by  the  close  of  the 
period  of  the  Judges,  Canaan  had  become 
the  land  of  the  God  of  Israel,  so  that  the 
people  had  no  strong  motive  to  worship 
Baal.  But  the  supremacy  of  Jehovah  was 
all  that  Samuel,  Saul,  David,  and  Solomon 
maintained ;  and  even  the  Baal  denounced 
b}^  Elijah  stood  for  a  political  alliance  to 
which  the  people  were  opposed.  But  in 
the  eighth  century  B.C.  the  prophets  began 
to  insist  upon  the  worship  of  Jehovah 
alone.  They  had  arrived  at  the  concep- 
tion of  an  absolute  difference  between 
Jehovah  and  the  gods  of  the  nations. 
These  were  seen  to  be  the  reflex  of  the 
worshippers,  without  any  fixed  character 
or  steady  will  of  their  own.  But  as  the 
prophets  pondered  over  the  dealings  of 
Jehovah  with  His  people,  they  perceived 
in  Him  a  will  higher  and  steadier  than  the 
human,  leading  them  on  towards  the  real- 
ization of  a  purpose  which  their  own  minds 
had  never  formed.  Thus  Jehovah  approved 
himself  a  being  of  moral  character  and  holy 
will,  who  was  bent  on  making  Israel  a  peo- 
ple of  righteousness.  Hence  arose  Hebrew 
monotheism,  which  as  yet  relnained  na- 
tional.    That  is  to  say,  it  had  its  ground 


124  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

in  the  organization  and  historic  achieve- 
ment of  the  nation.  The  prophet  Amos, 
indeed,  rose  to  a  larger  conception  of  God 
as  the  ruler  of  the  destinies  of  all  nations. 
But  Israel  could  realize  the  thought  of 
universal  monotheism  only  through  the 
collapse  of  its  own  nationality  and  its  long 
exile  in  Babylon.  As  the  Jewish  mind 
then  came  under  the  influence  of  Babylo- 
nian and  Persian  thought,  so  in  later  cen- 
turies it  was  open  to  the  philosophy  of  the 
Greeks,  and  from  this  blending  of  Aryan 
and  Semitic  elements  came  in  due  time 
that  universal  religion  which  has  been  the 
soul  of  European  and  American  civiliza- 
tion. It  may  be  hard  to  define  what  the 
Christian  religion  is.  But  the  religion  of 
Christ  consisted  in  a  vivid  consciousness 
that  Jehovah,  whom  Jeremiah  and  the 
second  Isaiah  described  as  gracious  and 
forgiving  to  his  people  Israel,  was  the  uni- 
versal Father,  a  God  of  love  to  every  son 
of  man.  Otherwise  expressed,  the  new 
religion  taught  that  God  was  spirit,  nay, 
the  spirit  in  all  spirits,  and  that  in  con- 
formity with  this  nature  and  relation  His 
attitude  to  man  was  one  of  unbroken  and 
unlimited  love. 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.         125 

On  its  anthropic  side  the  conception  of 
the  Godhead  is  here  completely  and  defin- 
itively formulated.  The  Father-Spirit  must 
take  the  place  hereafter  of  natural  or  quasi- 
natural  powers  in  man's  consciousness  of 
God.  Instead  of  hostile  divinities,  of  whom 
even  the  Greeks  retained  a  memory,  namely, 
their  belief  in  the  envy  of  the  gods,  we  see 
a  divine  heart  of  infinite  love.  Though 
those  great  ideas  were  soon  obscured  by 
the  emergence  of  the  older  doctrines  and 
the  rise  of  new  dogmas,  they  were  at  least 
actually  born,  and  not  only  born,  but  real- 
ized and  incorporated  in  the  life  and  teach- 
ings of  the  divinest  of  all  the  sons  of  men. 
They  could,  therefore,  never  utterly  perish. 
And  in  something  like  their  pristine  purity 
they  seem  to  be  breaking  afresh  on  the  re- 
flective consciousness  of  the  modem  world, 
which  many  centuries  of  education  have 
enabled  to  spell  out  the  meaning  of  that 
of  which  religious  genius  has  immediate 
feeling  and  apprehension. 

But  no  age  or  person  can  do  the  entire 
thinking  of  later  generations.  And  as  re- 
gards this  higher  consciousness  of  God,  our 
problem  is  to  make  it  cosmic  as  well  as 
anthropic.    For  it  originated,  let  us  remem- 


126  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

ber,  among'  a  people  who  had  no  science  of 
nature,  for  whom  nature  had  no  interest  in 
comparison  \vith  the  events  and  ends  of 
human  life  and  history.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Aryan  conception  of  God  was 
rooted  and  fixed  in  the  powers  and  aspects 
of  the  natural  world.  They  were  human- 
ized and  moralized,  but  their  objective  at- 
tachments were  never  completely  loosened. 
Hence,  in  its  highest  reach  among  the 
Greeks,  the  Aryan  spirit,  while  postulat- 
ing an  ethical  monotheism,  still  cleaved  to 
the  pantheism  which  was  the  necessary 
development  of  its  philosophy  of  nature. 
Between  such  a  metaphysic  and  natural 
science,  of  which  the  Greeks  were  also  the 
originators,  there  seems  to  be  a  close,  if  not 
necessary,  connection.  The  union  was  pro- 
claimed indissoluble  by  Giordano  Bruno, 
the  martyr  of  modern  science.  And  as  he 
spoke  under  the  inspiration  of  the  new  Co- 
pernican  astronomy,  so  under  the  influence 
of  recent  physics  and  of  Darwinian  biology 
Professor  Tyndall  spoke  to  the  same  effect 
in  his  now  famous  Belfast  address.  I  do 
not  hide,  therefore,  the  conviction  that  the 
problem  of  the  modern  theist  consists  in 
the  union  of  the  Aryan  and  Semitic  modes 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT.         127 

of  interpreting  existence.  We  must  have 
a  synthesis  of  the  Father  of  all  spirits  with 
the  groutid  of  all  nature.  In  other  words, 
we  shall  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than 
anthropocosmic  theism. 

The  evidence  for  this  hypothesis  must 
be  considered  in  the  lectures  that  follow. 


LECTURE  IV. 

BELIEF  IN   GOD  AS  CAUSE  OE  GEOUND  OF 
THE   WOELD. 

It  is  now  sixty  years  since  Carlyle  w  rote 
his  Characteristics.  In  that  famous  essay 
on  the  evils  of  reflection  he  maintained 
this  thesis:  Unconsciousness  belongs  to 
pure,  unmixed  life ;  consciousness  to  a  dis- 
eased mixture  and  conflict  of  life  and 
death;  the  one  is  synthetic  and  creative, 
the  other  analytic  and  destructive.  To 
Carlyle  his  own  generation  (which  was  of 
course  like  every  other)  seemed  the  most 
intensely  self-conscious  that  ever  had  ex- 
isted. He  complained  that  all  its  relations 
to  the  universe,  to  man,  to  God,  had  be- 
come a  matter  of  inquiry  and  of  doubt. 
Everything  had  to  be  anatomically  probed 
into  and  studied ;  nothing  would  go  on  of 
its  own  accord  and  do  its  function  quietly. 
Alas  !  alas  !  "  had  Adam  remained  in  Para- 
128 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.  129 

dise,  there  had  been  no  anatomy  and  no 
metaphysics." 

Certainly  if  knowledge  was  the  conse- 
quence of  the  fall,  as  scepticism  is  the 
fruit  of  knowledge,  Adam's  continuance 
in  Paradise  would  have  dispensed  us  from 
the  obligation  to  find  proofs  for  the  exist- 
ence of  God.  A  man  needs  proof  only  of 
that  which  has  become  doubtful  to  him. 
Hence,  even  in  the  world  as  we  find  it,  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  mankind  have 
not  the  slightest  personal  interest  in  a  dem- 
onstration of  the  divine  existence.  Like 
innocent  Adam  they  have  not  eaten  of  the 
tree  of  knowledge,  they  have  not  suffered 
from  its  sour  fruit.  Extremes  meet ;  and  as 
to  the  simple  peasant  so  also  to  the  poet  ra- 
tional theology  is  a  matter  of  little  mo- 
ment. He  sees  the  divine  idea  of  the 
world,  he  feels  the  divine  presence  in  his 
heart;  and  with  the  experience  of  these 
immediate  intuitions  and  emotions,  why 
should  he  heed  or  need  the  slow-built  argu- 
ments of  the  intellect? 

They  that  be  whole  need  not  a  physi- 
cian, but  they  that  be  sick.  Were  all  man- 
kind unreflecting  Adams  or  victoriously 
creative  Goethes,  we  should  indeed   need 


130  BELIEF  12^  GOD. 

no  philosophy  of  religion.  But  it  is  be- 
tween this  upper  and  nether  altitude  that 
modern  education  leaves  her  votaries.  For 
us  the  fever  of  doubt  is  actually  burning ; 
and  philosophy  is  the  means  to  allay  it. 
Our  belief  in  the  existence  of  God  is  not 
fresh  and  whole  as  when  we  absorbed  it 
with  our  mothers'  milk.  A  larger  knowl- 
edge and  experience  has  dislocated  our 
faith.  And  we  want  to  know  of  philoso- 
phy, whether  in  the  march  of  mind  a  place 
can  still  be  found  for  the  ancient  belief  in 
God.  The  idea  of  the  divine  being  still 
haunts  us,  and  the  heart  yearns  for  its  ac- 
ceptance by  the  intellect ;  but  as  thought 
produced  the  discord  so  only  thought,  free 
and  dispassionate,  can  restore  the  harmony. 
Can  then  our  faith  be  vindicated  at  the 
bar  of  reason?  Are  there  proofs,  valid 
proofs,  of  the  existence  of  God  ? 

Before  answering  this  question,  I  must 
point  out  that  we  have  here  to  do  neither 
with  a  new  belief  nor  with  altogether  new 
grounds  to  support  it.  A  being  in  whom 
the  consciousness  of  God  were  altogether 
wanting  could  not  be  expected  to  acquire 
it  from  our  argumentation.  No  descrip- 
tion of  color  can  communicate  an  idea  of 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.         131 

it  to  the  blind.  The  human  faculties  and 
their  normal  operations  must  be  assumed. 
And  these  have  brought  man  in  the  coui'se 
of  human  history  to  a  consciousness  of  God. 
No  doubt  different  conceptions  of  the  God- 
head have  prevailed  among  different  peo- 
ples. But  the  drift  and  issue  of  the  re- 
ligious consciousness,  as  it  unfolds  itself 
in  the  course  of  civilization,  are  clear  and 
unmistakable.  Accordingly,  the  grounds 
and  motives  which  led  man  to  form  and 
mould  the  conception  of  God  must  still 
be  the  basis  of  our  proofs  for  the  validity 
of  the  conception.  There  is  a  spirit  in 
man,  and  the  way  of  the  spirit  is  the 
method  of  the  philosopher.  He  aims  to 
bring  into  the  full  blaze  of  consciousness 
the  darkling,  unsuspected  considerations 
that  shaped  the  thinking  of  the  race.  It 
would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  regard 
the  philosopher  as  a  mere  photographer  of 
spiritual  processes  invisible  to  the  rest  of 
mankind.  He  is  also  a  chemist  whose 
crucible  is  reflective  thought.  And  in  it 
he  tests  the  elements  which  have  hitherto 
passed  as  independent  and  indissoluble  con- 
stituents of  human  belief.  It  may  very 
well  happen,  therefore,  that  a  theory  which 


132  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

was  stable  enough  for  earlier  thought  will 
fail  to  produce  conviction  in  us.  Only 
since  reason  is  everywhere  one  and  the 
same,  the  philosopher  must  recognize  in 
that  primitive  theory  a  relative  truth.  And 
in  dealing  with  the  grounds  of  belief  in 
God,  it  is  especially  important  that  we 
should  distinguish  the  formulas,  more  or 
less  imperfect,  in  which  they  have  been 
expressed,  from  the  essential  substance  and 
content  which  philosophy  reflecting  upon 
them  sees  to  have  been  already  involved  in 
the  religious  consciousness  of  the  rudest 
thinkers  though  they  themselves  were  un- 
aware of  it. 

Im  Anfang  war  die  That.  This  profound 
saying  of  Goethe's  means  in  the  present 
case  that  the  act  and  fact  of  man's  appre- 
hension of  God  preceded  his  meditating 
afterthought  of  it.  And  this  situation  of 
affairs  deserves  more  consideration  than  it 
generally  receives.  That  the  human  spirit 
is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  possession  of  the 
idea  of  God  is  an  argument  for  the  exist- 
ence of  God  unless  it  can  be  shown  that 
certain  ideas,  though  uniformly  produced, 
are  insubstantial  pageants  of  the  phantasy. 
It  is  no  reply  to  say  that  all  men  once 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.  133 

believed  in  the  motion  of  the  sun  round 
the  earth.  Science  does  reveal  to  us  modes 
of  behavior  of  things,  of  which  our  ances- 
tors unskilled  in  experiment  and  artificial 
observation  could  have  no  suspicion.  And 
the  scientific  interpretation  of  the  fuller 
body  of  facts  naturally  differs  from  the 
prescientific  interpretation  of  the  narrow 
field  of  unassisted  perception.  But  exist- 
ence itself  as  distinguished  from  its  modes 
of  behavior  is  unapproachable  by  science. 
And  if  we  cast  out  our  belief  in  God  be- 
cause it  is  prescientific,  the  same  logic  will 
forbid  us  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  a 
self  or  of  an  objective  world.  Real  exist- 
ence we  cannot  prove ;  we  cannot  even  con- 
struct it  in  thought.  Our  belief  in  it  be- 
longs to  the  nature  of  intelligence  itself. 
We  cannot  imagine  a  consciousness  stripped 
of  this  primary  constituent  without  ceasing 
to  be  a  consciousness.  Science  may  change 
our  views  of  what  reality  does,  but  not  our 
intuition  that  reality  is.  Now  human  in- 
telligence has  recognized  two  dependent 
realities  and  one  independent  reality.  It 
knows  the  soul  as  unitary  substratum  of 
all  mental  phenomena,  the  world  as  the 
complex    of  all   natural   phenomena,  and 


134  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

God  as  the  absolute  ground  and  source  of 
both  the  soul  and  the  world.  The  thorough 
agnostic  repudiates  all  three  realities  and 
breaks  with  common  sense.  He  is  con- 
sistent, but  for  us  impossible.  Generally, 
however,  the  divine  existence  is  denied 
while  that  of  the  world  at  least  is  as- 
sumed. In  such  a  case  we  demand  to 
know  why  intelligence  is  allowed  to  make 
a  synthesis  of  a  part  of  its  experience  into 
an  objective  world  and  forbidden  to  make 
a  synthesis  of  the  residue  into  a  soul,  and 
of  both  soul  and  world  into  one  absolute 
ground  or  God.  Until  this  discrimination 
can  be  justified  in  some  other  way  than  by 
an  indiscriminate  denunciation  of  "  theol- 
ogy" or  an  undiscerning  appeal  to  that 
obsolete  rationalism  which  forms  so  large 
a  part  of  the  philosophy  of  Kant,  I  see  no 
way  of  escaping  the  conclusion  that  man's 
consciousness  of  God,  as  ultimate  principle 
of  all  reality,  is  at  least  strong  presumptive 
evidence  of  the  real  existence  of  God. 

But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  evi- 
dence generally  fails  to  produce  conviction, 
whether  because  it  escapes  observation  or 
is  really  insufficient  in  itself.  The  sceptic 
has  an  idea  of  God,  but  he  is  without  be- 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WOULD.         135 

lief  in  the  objective  counterpart.  It  falls 
to  reflective  thought,  therefore,  to  discover 
other  grounds  of  conviction.  And  these 
constitute  what  are  called  par  excellence 
the  arguments  for  the  existence  of  God. 
These  arguments  stand  related  to  the  tri- 
partite division  of  the  human  soul.  As 
man  is  active,  rational,  and  moral,  so  the 
causality,  design,  and  goodness  exhibited 
throughout  all  existence  are  judged  to  be 
the  expression  of  a  divine  will,  intelli- 
gence, and  moral  nature.  The  existence 
of  this  being  is  demonstrated  by  showing 
that  the  world  in  its  origin  and  orderly 
constitution  and  man  as  a  moral  agent  are 
explicable  only  if  we  postulate  an  eternal 
first  cause,  a  wise  designer,  and  a  moral 
governor.  The  grounds,  therefore,  for  be- 
lief in  the  existence  of  God  are  at  once 
cosmic  and  anthropic.  The  last  yields 
what  is  known  as  the  moral  argument. 
The  first,  which  contains  the  two  concep- 
tions of  the  causation  and  the  rationality 
of  the  universe,  yields  respectively  the  so- 
called  cosmological  and  teleological  argu- 
ments for  the  existence  of  God. 

Such,  in  outline,  is  the  argumentation  to 
which  we  now  address  ourselves.     It  seems 


136  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

scarcely  credible  that  in  proofs  which  have 
satisfied  reason,  in  the  person  of  so  many 
distinguished  thinkers,  we  shall  not  find 
essential  truth.  It  would  be  false  mod- 
esty, or  something  worse,  however,  did  I 
not  express  m}^  conviction  that  the  one 
vital  truth  which  underlies  all  these  argu- 
ments receives  but  a  very  imperfect  ex- 
pression in  any  of  them.  Nor  can  it  be 
attained  by  a  mere  synthesis  of  their  com- 
plementary phases.  There  is  needed  a 
higher  standpoint,  —  a  more  spiritual  view 
of  God,  a  more  dynamic  view  of  the  world, 
and  a  more  organic  view  of  their  connec- 
tion with  one  another,  and  of  both  with 
man.  It  is,  however,  by  traversing  and 
transcending  the  successive  stages  of  the 
old  theistic  argument  that  thought  most 
naturally,  if  not  inevitably,  ascends  to  the 
all-surveying  altitude  of  anthropocosmic 
theism.  And  I  see  no  better  way  of  estab- 
lishing that  theory  than  by  developing  it 
in  relation  to  others,  whose  truth  it  must 
absorb,  whose  limitations  it  must  avoid. 
As  oldest,  simplest,  most  concrete  and  pic- 
torial, I  begin  with  the  cosmological  argu- 
ment for  the  existence  of  God. 

This  argument  originates  in  a  condition 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.         137 

of  mind  in  which  observation  (internal,  as 
well  as  external)  and  reflection,  both  of 
which  are  presupposed  to  a  considerable 
degree  in  the  teleological  and  moral  argu- 
ments, are  at  the  very  lowest  stages  of  de- 
velopment. Who  made  it?  is  a  question 
that  can  properly  be  asked  only  where  a 
maker  and  a  material  apart  from  the  maker 
are  both  upon  the  scene.  This  is  the  case 
with  man,  whose  entire  external  activity 
is  directed  upon  the  transformation  of  ma- 
terial masses  or  elements  into  new  shapes 
or  combinations.  Thus,  the  savage  makes 
tools  and  weapons  of  pieces  of  stone,  and 
the  civilized  man  constructs  machinery  and 
apparatus  of  wood,  iron,  and  steel.  Now, 
although  God,  simply  because  there  is  noth- 
ing outside  him,  cannot  be  a  mechanism,  it 
is  natural  for  the  sensuous,  pictorial  thought 
of  unreflecting  humanity  so  to  conceive  him. 
This  naif  anthropomorphism,  overlooking 
the  absence  of  the  condition  absolutely 
necessary  for  such  an  analogy  between  the 
divine  and  the  human  activity,  represents 
God  as  standing  in  the  same  relation  to  the 
world  as  man  to  the  machine  his  hands  have 
fashioned.  This  picturesque  theology  takes 
on   surprisingly   delightful   forms    in    the 


138  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

minds  of  children.  And  the  infantile  races 
all  tell  their  legends  of  the  divine  creation 
of  the  world.  That  is  a  graphic  myth 
which  represents  God  as  living  primevally 
in  a  mussel,  whose  two  shells,  when  forced 
apart,  became  heaven  and  earth,  while  the 
waters  are  the  streams  of  perspiration  that 
flowed  from  the  struggling  creator.  Greek 
cosmogony  pictures  the  formation  of  the 
world  from  an  original  chaos.  In  all  these, 
as  in  the  Chaldean  legend,  the  world  and 
the  gods  grow  up  together ;  cosmogony  is, 
at  the  same  time,  theogony.  But  in  the 
more  advanced  Hebrew  thought  of  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis,  which  seems  to  be 
dependent  upon  the  Chaldean  account  of 
creation  for  its  idea  of  a  primeval  chaos  of 
water  and  darkness,  the  spirit  of  God  is 
conceived  as  pre-existent  and  independent 
of  the  chaotic  mass,  which  he  separates 
and  moulds  by  the  mere  fiat  of  his  will. 
No  one  can  fail  to  recognize  in  this  sub- 
lime story  a  notion  of  the  Godhead  infi- 
nitely higher  than  in  the  theogonic  myths 
of  earlier  and  more  naturalistic  thinking. 
And  beneath  all  its  graceful  touches  of  Ori- 
ental fancy,  which  the  unimaginative  Oc- 
cident has  too  long  taken  for  the  prose  of 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.         139 

an  abstract  system,  lies  in  noble  outline 
the  essential  truth  of  the  dependence  of 
the  sensible  universe  upon  an  infinite  and 
eternal  Spirit.  But  the  philosopher  can- 
not follow  the  poet  in  conjoining,  in  this 
arbitrary,  fortuitous  fashion,  the  creative 
spirit  and  the  act  of  creation.  God  did 
not  first  exist,  and  then,  as  though  in  need 
of  something  else,  create  a  world.  It  is  of 
the  essence  of  spirit. to  manifest  or  reveal 
itself.  And  just  because  God  is  spirit,  the 
world  is  his  constant  expression.  Creation 
is  the  eternal  self-revelation  of  God.  Fur- 
thermore, though,  in  the  Biblical  narra- 
tive, God  is  represented  as  higher  than 
nature  and  independent  of  it,  he  is  yet  not 
the  All.  Chaos  is  real,  and  apparently 
eternal,  too.  This  dualism  could  not  stand 
the  examination  of  thought.  And  in  op- 
position to  the  Gnostic  philosophizings  of 
the  second  century,  the  church  put  for- 
ward the  dogma  of  a  miraculous  creation 
of  the  world  out  of  nothing.  This  has  re- 
mained the  official  doctrine  of  Christen- 
dom. But  some  of  the  greatest  Christian 
theologians  have  been  unable  to  maintain 
the  dogma  in  its  original  purity.  As 
Thomas  Aquinas  confessed  that  it  could 


140  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

be  believed  only  on  the  authority  of  the 
church,  so  the  "  angelic  doctor  "  of  our  own 
day  —  the  venerable  James  Martineau  — 
in  his  Study  of  Religion^  seems  to  make 
the  creation  of  the  world  an  eternal  pro- 
cess, conceiving  it  as  a  self-sundering  of 
the  deity,  in  whom  in  some  way  the  world 
was  always  contained.  That  natural  sci- 
ence long  ago  broke  with  the  traditional 
view  of  creation  needs,  I  suppose,  scarcely 
to  be  observed. 

The  husk  of  the  argument  from  causal- 
ity ma}^  be  peeled  off  and  thrown  away, 
but  its  kernel  seems  to  me  imperishable 
truth.  That  soul  of  truth  lies  in  the  recog- 
nition that  the  world,  which  is  immediately 
revealed  to  us  in  sense-perception,  and  the 
processes  of  which  are  recorded  in  science, 
has  a  deeper  ground  than  this  material 
appearance,  —  a  ground  which  reflective 
analysis  obliges  us  to  hold  as  spiritual.  If 
the  scientist  is  not  conducted  to  this  ulti- 
mate source  of  things,  it  is  because,  in  his  ab- 
sorbij^  study  of  the  orderly  sequences  and 
co-existences  of  events,  he  is  under  no  obli- 
gation, and  finds  no  occasion,  as  in  general 
he  has  not  the  inclination,  to  raise  the 
ultimate  question   of   the   ground  of   the 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WOULD.  141 

possibility  of  those  phenomena  and  their 
laws.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  turns  and 
rends  the  theistic  argument  from  causality, 
it  is  because,  in  his  repulsion  from  the 
fanciful  and  arbitrary  forms  in  which  pic- 
torial thinking  has  represented  it,  he  loses 
sight  of  the  sole  essential  content  of  the 
argument,  the  witness  of  the  natural  to 
the  spiritual.  His  procedure  is  all  the 
more  excusable  for  the  reason  that  the  pro- 
fessed champions  of  theism  —  not  excepting 
so  thoughtful  and  intelligent  a  reasoner 
as  Professor  Flint  of  Edinburgh  —  have 
almost  invariably  put  forward  the  accidents 
of  the  causal  argument  for  its  essence.  In- 
sisting that  nature  is  but  the  name  for  an 
effect  whose  cause  is  God,  in  just  the  same 
fashion  as  one  natural  event  or  existence 
is  the  effect  of  another,  they  have  not  hesi- 
tated to  assert  that  the  atoms  into  which 
science  has  resolved  all  material  things, 
are  "manufactured"  articles,  supernatural 
creations  of  God.  This  attempt  to  picture 
the  making  of  reality  shocks  the  sound 
instincts  of  the  scientist,  without  bringing 
any  satisfaction  to  the  higher  religious 
mind.  What  is  needed  is,  not  a  super- 
natural creation  of  a  non-existent  world, 


142  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

but  a  natural  interpretation  of  the  world 
we  find  actually  given,  and  can  never  anni- 
hilate, even  in  thought.  What  both  the 
scientific  and  religious  consciousness  de- 
mand is  a  God  here  in  the  world,  not  there 
outside  of  it  or  making  it. 

Why  this  argument,  in  spite  of  its  more 
abstract  formulation  in  terms  of  causality, 
should  yet  continue  to  emphasize  only  that 
external  relation  of  God  to  the  world  which 
the  innocent  anthropomorphism  of  infan- 
tile thought  pictured  as  creation,  may  be 
explained  partly  by  the  authority  of  tra- 
dition, and  partly  by  the  presence  of  an 
underlying  truth,  for  which  a  more  appro- 
priate mode  of  expression  has  not  yet  been 
discovered.  In  a  certain  sense,  no  doubt, 
the  creational  dogma  satisfies  the  yearning 
of  the  intellect  for  an  explanation  of  things, 
but  the  explanation  is  so  arbitrary,  and 
even  so  childish,  that  the  persistence  of  the 
dogma  can  scarcely  be  due  to  theoretical 
considerations.  But  students  of  human 
civilization  know  that  of  all  its  factors 
none  so  stubbornly  resist  change  as  the 
ideas  and  institutions  of  religion.  This 
conservatism  of  the  religious  consciousness 
explains   why   the    church    always    seems 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.  143 

agfainst  the  saviours  and  renovators  of  man- 
kind.  It  explains,  too,  why  religious  be- 
liefs survive  after  their  grounds  have  been 
completely  undermined  by  more  scientifio 
views  of  nature  and  of  man.  Such  beliefs 
are  apt  to  perpetuate  themselves,  apart 
from  the  unconscious  sway  of  feeling,  by 
alliance  with  ideas  and  considerations  quite 
foreign  to  those  which  gave  them  birth; 
and  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  creational 
form  of  the  argument  from  causality  owes 
its  present  respectability,  not  so  much  to 
its  theoretical  sufficiency,  as  to  its  capacity 
for  satisfying  the  devotional  needs  of  a 
certain  class  of  worshippers.  Originally 
a  philosophy  of  the  world,  it  is  now  a  mere 
postulate  of  the  heart  that  craves  a  more 
human  God  than  it  can  find  throbbing  in 
the  pulsations  of  universal  being.  For  the 
worship  of  such  a  heart,  God  must  be 
sharply  separated  from  the  cold,  mechan- 
ical realm  of  natural  law ;  and  this  external 
realm  must  yet  be  so  subject  to  the  divine 
will  that  interference  with  its  normal  order 
must  be  permissible  if  the  prayer  of  faith 
demands  it.  Both  ends  are  gained  by 
making  God  the  arbitrary  creator  of  a 
world  which  is  conceived  as  an  instituted 


144  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

mechanism,  not  as  a  spontaneous  life.  But 
the  presuppositions  that  require  such  con- 
clusions are  those  of  a  narrow  piety,  how- 
ever sincere.  The  error  consists  in  forcing 
the  given  facts  of  the  universe  into  an 
arbitrary  scheme  of  our  own  making,  which 
is  quite  foreign  to  them.  What  God  is 
we  can  know  only  through  the  revelation 
he  has  made  of  himself  in  nature  and  in 
the  soul  of  man.  It  is  therefore  manifestly 
illogical  to  begin  by  assuming  there  is  any 
incompatibility  between  the  course  of  the 
world  and  the  heart  of  the  eternal.  The 
one  must  express  the  other,  as  the  coun- 
tenance is  the  image  of  the  soul  within. 
If  God's  ways  are  not  as  our  ways,  nor  his 
thoughts  as  our  thoughts,  it  is  surely  a 
mistaken  piety  that  continues  to  assert  they 
are,  and  refuses  to  study  the  divine  char- 
acter in  the  one  record  in  which  it  is 
described,  —  a  record  that  is  perennially 
unfolding  itself  to  him  who  has  eyes  to 
look  into  the  mysteries  of  the  life  of  man 
and  of  nature.  These  are  the  tokens  by 
which  we  shall  know  the  ever-living,  ever- 
active  God.  Others  there  are  not,  howso- 
ever we  may  fondly  dream.  To  him  who 
examines  these  comes  wisdom,  and  the  be- 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD.         145 

ginning  of  wisdom  is  the  fear  of  the  Lord. 
In  awe  and  reverence  the  new-born  soul 
discerns  that  the  one  great  fact  is  the  eter- 
nal life  of  God.  Man  recognizes  that  his 
own  highest  life  consists  in  hopeful,  trust- 
ful resignation  to  the  Infinite  Spirit,  with 
whom  he  feels  himself  in  union  and  com- 
munion. The  glow  of  such  a  faith  con- 
sumes the  somewhat  selfish  piety  which 
thinks  of  God  as  existing  mainly  to  guar- 
antee satisfaction  to  the  wishes  and  desires 
of  the  human  heart.  He  that  loses  his  life 
shall  find  it.  In  this  joyous  resignation  to 
the  will  of  the  Father-Spirit  man  will  cease 
to  think  of  nature  as  a  set  of  arrangements 
instituted  mainly  with  reference  to  man- 
kind; and,  with  this  practical  prejudice 
removed,  theoretical  reflection  will  be  left 
free  to  show  that  nature  is  the  living  gar- 
ment of  God,  as  eternal  as  the  infinite 
spirit  of  whom  it  is  the  revelation.  It  is 
therefore  only  the  lowest  kind  of  piety 
that  needs  for  its  support  that  dogma  of 
creation  which  thought  can  never  accept. 
It  is  the  piety  that  would  construct  the 
world  according  to  its  preconceived  ideas. 
Substitute  for  it  the  higher  piety,  which 
accepts  in  faith,  hope,  and  love  the  given 


146  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

facts  of  the  universe,  as  the  eternal  expres- 
sion of  the  mind  of  God,  and  the  heart  will 
have  no  motive  for  suggesting  an  obsolete 
interpretation  of  the  essential  content  of 
the  argument  from  causality.  But  heart 
and  mind,  according  well,  will  now  recog- 
nize that  the  underlying  truth  of  the  dogma 
of  creation  is  the  eternal  dependence  of 
the  world  upon  God. 

I  have  dwelt  on  this  point  at  some  length 
beCau'se  I  am  convinced  it  is  not  so  much 
the  theoretical  grounds  (which  are  yet  to  be 
examined),  but  the  supposed  needs  of  the 
pious  heart,  that  lend  support  to  the  dogma 
of  creation,  and  put  philosophical  theists 
upon  the  track  of  defending  it  by  an  ap- 
peal to  the  law  of  causality.  Those  well- 
meant  efforts,  it  will  be  seen  presently,  end 
in  failure.  But  let  me  here  point  out  that 
the  insistence  upon  the  dogma  of  creation 
as  essential  to  belief  in  God,  has  given  ag- 
nostics an  opportunity,  which  they  have 
not  missed,  of  undermining  all  theology. 
Who  taught  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  that  "  ul- 
timate religious  ideas  "  all  arise  out  of  and 
converge  upon  the  question  of  the  origin 
of  the  world?  Those  theists,  I  should  an- 
swer, who,  instead  of  seeking  God  here 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.  147 

and  now  as  ultimate  principle  of  the  uni- 
verse, both  in  its  own  being  and  in  our 
knowledge  of  it,  refuse  to  see  him  at  all, 
if  not  as  an  external  creator  in  long  past 
ages.  Taking  the  problem,  as  those  theists 
have  formulated  it,  Mr.  Spencer  easily 
shows  it  to  be  insoluble.  His  reasoning, 
indeed,  is  not  new.  It  consists  in  showing 
that  even  if  we  grant  the  assumptions  of 
the  creationist,  his  theory  cannot  be  real- 
ized in  thought :  it  is  a  mere  name  or  sym- 
bol of  a  process  wholly  unintelligible  to 
us,  because  outside  of  the  circle  of  our 
experience.  And,  secondly,  it  would  not 
in  the  least  help  us  to  understand  the  ori- 
gin of  the  material  of  which  the  universe 
consists.  No  simile  can  make  intelligible 
to  us  the  creation  of  matter  out  of  nothing, 
which  is  the  real  mystery.  Then,  lastly, 
it  might  be  asked,  How  came  there  to  be 
an  external  agency?  But  without  dwell- 
ing upon  this  last  point,  Ave  have  enough 
left  to  warrant  the  rejection  of  the  crea- 
tionist's dogma.  And  Mr.  Spencer  rejects 
it.  In  my  opinion,  a  great  gain  might 
thereby  have  enured  to  theology,  had  not  its 
defenders  identified  with  this  suppositious 
creation  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  God. 


148  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

But  as  tlie  case  stood,  Mr.  Spencer  was  en- 
titled to  say :  "  If  it  is  from  the  creation 
of  the  world  you  argue  to  a  First  Cause,  I 
declare  God  unknowable,  since  creation  is 
absolutely  inconceivable."  But  Mr.  Spen- 
cer was  not  entitled  to  go  farther.  As 
originator  of  the  world  at  some  point  of 
time,  God  is  certainly  inconceivable.  But 
as  eternal  ground  of  all  existence,  God"  is 
not  only  conceivable,  but  necessary  to  the 
thought  that  goes  far  enough  in  its  analysis 
of  given  reality.  How  short  a  journey  Mr. 
Spencer  made  in  this  direction  is  evidenced 
by  his  naif  designation  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  eternal  existence  of  the  world  as  the 
atheistic  theory,  and  his  declaration  that 
self-existence  is  rigorously  inconceivable. 
The  fact  is,  he  has  been  taught  by  the 
theist  there  is  no  God  who  does  not  begin 
things ;  and  since  he  finds  no  evidence  of 
such  absolute  origination,  which  is  also  in- 
conceivable, he  draws  the  all  too  hasty  con- 
clusion that  the  power  which  the  universe 
manifests  to  us  is  utterly  inscrutable.  Thus 
agnosticism  becomes  the  theoretical  result 
of  that  practical  postulate  of  the  pious  heart 
which  demands  that  God  shall  have  cre- 
ated the  world  in  order  that  he  may  control 


AS  CAUSE  OF   THE    WORLD.  149 

it  with  some  reference  to  the  needs  of  man- 
kind. The  dogma  that,  on  a  certain  plane 
of  reflection,  reconciles  head  and  heart  in 
religion,  on  a  higher  plane  proves  incon- 
ceivable to  the  one  and  unrefreshing  to  the 
other. 

I  have  failed  in  my  purpose  if  it  is  not 
now  clear  to  you  that,  logically  considered, 
there  is  no  connection  between  the  ques- 
tion of  the  existence  of  God  and  the  sup- 
posed creation  of  the  world  in  time.  Or, 
to  speak  more  precisely,  as  we  do  not  know 
that  the  world  had  a  beginning  in  time,  and 
see  no  evidence  to  suppose  it  had,  while  the 
very  thought  is  beset  with  inner  contradic- 
tions, it  is  impossible  to  base  on  such  a 
supposition  our  belief  in  the  existence  of 
God.  This  conclusion,  however,  you  may 
hesitate  to  accept  until  a  fuller  hearing  has 
been  given  to  those  who,  denying  our  doc- 
trine of  the  eternal  existence  of  the  world, 
hold  that  it  originated  in  time,  and  is, 
therefore,  an  effect  which  must  have  been 
produced  by  an  adequate  cause  —  a  cause 
that  there  is  other  warrant  for  identifying 
with  God. 

To  these  defenders  of  theism  I  readily 
concede  all  that  is  demanded  by  the  most 


150  BELIEF  IN   GOD. 

favorable  interpretation  of  the  principle  of 
causality.  Whatever  has  begun  to  be, 
whether  a  thing  or  an  event,  must  have  a 
cause  or  antecedent  which  accounts  for  it. 
So  much  may  be  admitted  as  self-evident. 
And  its  self-evidence,  let  us  grant,  is  not 
affected  by  Hume's  irrefragable  demonstra- 
tion that  we  can  give  no  reason  for  the 
necessity  which  always  attaches  to  our 
thought  of  the  relation  between  cause  and 
effect.  For  everything  that  has  come  to 
be,  there  is  a  cause  of  its  coming  to  be.  If, 
then,  it  can  be  shown  that  the  universe  had 
a  commencement,  it  may  be  maintained 
with  absolute  certainty  that  there  existed 
a  cause  adequate  to  this  great  event.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  causal  principle  has  no 
application  unless  it  can  be  proved  that  the 
world  had  a  beginning.  If  it  be  an  eternal 
existence,  thought  does  not  demand  any- 
thing further.  Accordingly,  it  will  be  ad- 
mitted by  every  candid  mind  that  the 
argument  for  the  divine  existence  which 
is  based  on  the  principle  of  causality  can 
be  no  stronger  than  the  proof  that  the 
world  actually  had  an  origin  in  time. 

How,  now,  is  the  absolute  beginning  of 
the  universe  to  be  established?     That  the 


AS   CAUSE  OF  THE  WORLD,         151 

individual  objects  we  perceive  have  all 
come  into  existence,  nobody  will  be  dis- 
posed to  call  in  question.  They  are  com- 
pounded of  divers  elements  which  came 
together  in  the  lapse  of  time.  There  was 
a  period  when  the  strata  of  the  earth's 
crust  had  no  existence,  when  the  earth 
itself  was  not,  and  the  living  things  that 
creep  upon  it,  when  sun,  moon,  and  stars 
were  a  blank,  and  all  our  world  one  vast 
abyss  of  impalpable  ether.  But  when  facts 
like  these  are  cited  to  prove  that  the  uni- 
verse is  an  effect,  the  one  important  cir- 
cumstance is  overlooked,  that  if  at  any 
given  moment  the  universe  is  an  effect,  its 
cause  is  found  in  the  state  of  the  universe 
at  the  preceding  moment.  We  find  no  such 
thing  as  an  absolute  beginning.  Alike  in 
our  examination  of  particular  objects  and 
of  the  entire  solar  system,  what  we  find  is, 
that  reality  abides,  while  its  phases  vary. 
The  confusion  between  relative  and  abso- 
lute beginning,  which  is  unavoidable  for 
immature  thought,  but  which  the  Hellenic 
mind  had  overcome  in  the  first  stage  of  its 
philosophy,  ought  not  to  have  been  offered 
as  the  foundation  of  theism  to  a  generation 
that  had  just  made  the  great  discovery  of 


152  BELIEF  m  GOD. 

the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy  and 
the  indestructibility  of  substance.  To  the 
modern  scientist,  as  to  the  ancient  Greek 
cosmologist,  the  universe  is  eternal,  but 
subject  eternally  to  evolutions  and  disso- 
lutions. As  a  whole,  it  is  not  an  effect  of 
anything  outside  itself.  And  if  you  cannot 
find  God  in  the  world  as  its  substance  and 
very  self,  you  certainly  cannot  make  him 
first  cause  of  whai  you  have  so  far  failed 
to  prove  an  event  in  time. 

But  at  this  point  the  argument  from 
causality  takes  a  new  turn.  It  admits  for 
the  nonce,  at  any  rate,  that  there  is  some- 
thing eternal  in  the  physical  universe ;  and, 
having  identified  this  eternal  element  with 
dead  atoms,  it  challenges  them  alone  to 
produce  the  world  we  know.  The  chal- 
lenge is  unanswerable.  Matter  and  motion 
are  in  the  world ;  but  they  are  its  mechan- 
ism, not  its  essence.  The  atomistic  theory 
furnishes  a  useful  net  to  catch  the  world 
in  for  the  purpose  of  expressing  its  rela- 
tions by  mathematico-physical  formulse. 
But  of  course  it  abstracts  from  everything 
in  the  world  save  extended  atoms  moving 
in  a  void.  And  these  no  more  constitute 
the  universe  than  a  skeleton  constitutes 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.  153 

the  living  organism  that  once  built  it  up 
for  the  development  of  its  own  life.  When 
the  atomistic  framework  of  thought  is  rep- 
resented as  the  formative  principle  of  the 
cosmos,  the  abstract  thinker  has  simply 
become  the  slave  of  his  own  abstractions. 
Of  course  the  germ  of  the  universe  must 
have  been  pregnant  with  all  tliat  the  uni- 
verse has  since  become.  There,  too,  lay 
order,  unity,  life,  thought.  But  this  per- 
fectly just  conclusion  makes  against  that 
separation  of  nature  and  spirit,  of  which 
our  theist  was  guilty  when  he  admitted,  at 
least  for  the  sake  of  argument,  the  exist- 
ence of  eternal  and  immutable  atoms  of 
matter.  Material  atoms,  he  argues,  even 
if  eternal,  could  not  produce  our  world. 
Ordering  intelligence  is  necessary.  But 
the  law  of  parsimony  forbids  the  assump- 
tion of  two  ultimate  causes  if  one  is  suffi- 
cient. Matter  alone  is  not  sufficient.  But 
mind  which  originates  the  universe,  when 
matter  is  given,  could  presumably  have 
created  its  materials  as  well  as  control 
them.  Therefore,  a  Supreme  Intelligence 
is  the  cause  of  the  universe.  The  argument 
which  began  with  conceding  the  eternity 


154  BELIEF'  IIT  GOD. 

of  matter  ends  with  an  assurance  of   the 
eternity  of  spirit  alone. 

But  neither  has  this  intellectual  somer- 
sault made  good  the  position,  without 
which  the  argument  from  causality  is  of 
none  effect.  It  has  not  yet  been  shown 
that  the  universe  actually  had  a  beginning 
in  time.  The  one-sided  abstraction  of  ma- 
terialism has  been  brushed  away  by  an 
equally  one-sided  abstract  spiritualism. 
Matter  is  a  mere  symbolic  conception. 
What  we  actually  know  is  a  complex  of 
material  things,  arranged  and  organized 
as  nature.  Go  back  as  far  as  science  and 
imagination  can  carry  you,  and  this  exter- 
nal sphere,  however  changed  in  aspect,  re- 
mains still  a  cosmos.  To  posit,  therefore, 
the  eternity  of  a  chaos  of  atoms  is  a  sheer 
absurdity.  You  can  reach  it  only  by  an- 
nihilating in  thought  this  orderly  reality 
that  is  given  to  us.  You  pulverize  the 
body  of  nature,  and  then  find  the  dust 
inadequate  to  produce  the  universe.  You 
next  call  in  the  aid  of  Intelligence.  But 
being  unwilling  to  accept  two  ultimate  prin- 
ciples, you  ask  us  to  believe  that  spirit  once 
existed  without  embodiment,  and  sometime 
afterwards  manufactured  nature.      Mean- 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.         155 

time  we  have  waited  patiently  for  the 
indispensable  proof  that  nature,  both  the 
inner  spirit  and  the  outer  material  expres- 
sion, was  not  an  eternal  existence.  The 
refutation  of  materialism,  far  from  touch- 
ing this  question,  only  showed  that  the 
universe,  whether  created  or  uncreated,  is 
the  scene  of  intelligence,  as  well  as  of 
mobile  and  extended  atoms.  That  one  of 
these  was  prior  to  the  other  has  as  little 
meaning  as  that  two  intersecting  lines  are 
prior  to  the  angle  they  enclose.  We  can 
in  thought  attend  either  to  the  intersecting 
lines  or  to  the  enclosed  angle ;  but  in  reality 
there  never  can  be  an  angle  without  inter- 
secting lines,  nor  intersecting  lines  without 
an  angle.  Similarly  the  universe  we  knoAV, 
and  therefore  the  only  universe  we  can  talk 
about,  embraces  not  only  moving  particles 
but  a  plan  of  their  arrangement,  and  not 
only  a  material  cosmos  but  organic  life  and 
self-conscious  thought.  In  this  case,  it  is 
true,  natural  history  assures  us  there  was 
a  time  when  the  earth  held  no  living  or 
thinking  beings.  But  since  they  have  act- 
ually appeared,  it  is  certain  there  never  was 
a  time  when  nature  had  not  the  capacity 
of  producing  them.    And  instead  of  regard- 


156  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

ing  nature  before  their  emergence  as  a  chaos 
of  atoms,  we  are  bound  to  interpret  it  as  a 
developing  cosmos,  which  contains  in  itself 
the  promise  and  potency  of  all  terrestrial 
life  and  intelligence.  To  ask  if  the  atoms 
took  counsel  together  and  formed  the  world, 
is  an  absurd  question,  for  it  supposes  atoms 
existing  apart  from  intelligence.  But  atoms 
are  merely  the  hypothetical  elements  of  that 
material  vesture  in  which  spirit  has  eter- 
nally expressed  itself.  Spirit  is  the  eternal 
reality,  and  nature  its  eternal  manifesta- 
tion. The  vice  of  the  argument  for  the 
origination  of  the  world  in  time  is,  that  it 
mistakes  the  relation  between  intelligence 
and  its  expression  for  an  opposition  of 
entities,  of  which  one  has  to  be  shown 
prior  to  the  other.  In  truth,  nature  is  the 
externalization  of  spirit,  and  no  more  sep- 
arable from  it  than  the  spoken  word  from 
the  thought  it  symbolizes. 

I  think  it  will  now  be  conceded  that 
the  argument  from  causality,  through  fail- 
ure to  prove  that  the  universe  began  in 
time,  cannot  demonstrate  the  existence  of 
a  First  Cause  outside  the  universe.  And 
this  conclusion  is  independent  of  Kant's 
dictum  that  the  causal  relation  holds  good 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.  15T 

only  of  phenomena  within  the  universe, 
not  of  the  universe  itself  and  something 
beyond.  I  will  not  object  to  your  apply- 
ing the  causal  relation  to  the  universe  as 
a  whole,  provided  you  can  show  that,  like 
any  other  effect,  it  has  come  into  existence 
at  some  moment  of  time.  But  this  co7i- 
ditio  sine  qua  non  it  is  impossible  to  satisfy. 
Hence  I  conclude  that  the  truth  of  the 
argument  from  causality  lies  not  in  an 
extra-mundane  Cause  or  Maker  of  a  cre- 
ated world,  but  in  an  intra-mundane  Cause 
or  ground  of  an  uncreated  world.  Against 
both  these  latter  conceptions,  however, 
Kant  would  protest.  Restricting  causality 
to  sensible  phenomena,  and  maintaining 
we  could  know  nothing  of  what  lay  be- 
yond or  beneath,  he  would  pronounce  the 
conception  of  an  "  intra-mundane  cause  " 
an  empty  illusion.  I  have  shown,  in  an 
earlier  lecture,  that  this  agnosticism  is  in 
large  part  the  outcome  of  a  rationalism 
which  later  thought  has  completely  over- 
come. And  with  the  modern  view  of  the 
relation  between  sensation  and  thought, 
we  find  it  perfectly  legitimate  to  interpret 
sensible  phenomena,  which  are  only  the 
raw  material  of   knowledge,  in  terms   of 


158  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

their  supersensuous  ground.  And  the  real 
meaning  of  the  argument  from  causality 
is  that  the  objects  we  perceive  by  sense 
are  not  themselves  ultimates,  since  their 
material  character  of  independence  van- 
ishes in  the  light  of  reflective  thought ; 
and  that,  standing  as  they  do  in  fixed 
relations  to  one  another  as  members  of  a 
single  cosmos  with  a  single  system  of  laws, 
they  must  be  interpreted  as  moments  of 
one  underlying  reality,  which  to  explain 
all  their  characteristics,  can  only  be  con- 
ceived as  an  infinite  spirit.  The  conten- 
tion that  this  spirit  has  expressed  itself 
eternally  through  nature  will  also  be  met 
by  the  Kantian  disproof  of  the  eternity  of 
the  world.  But  keen  as  is  the  reasoning 
in  all  Kant's  antinomies,  which  Hegel  re- 
garded as  the  crowning  achievement  of 
the  Critique.,  I  can  find  no  contradiction 
in  the  thought  that  far  as  we  recede  in 
time  we  never  touch  the  initial  point  of 
existence.  And  since  what  is  true  of  the 
area  actually  traversed  by  thought  is  true 
of  all  that  remains,  we  may,  following  the 
reasoning  of  the  mathematicians,  conclude 
that  nowhere  had  the  world  a  beginning 
in  time.     On  the  other  hand,  we  can  see 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.  159 

the  absurdity  of  annihilating  at  any  given 
stage  of  our  regression  the  universe  which 
is  given  to  us  as  real.  If  such  legerdemain 
is  practised  for  the  sake  of  winning  a  deity, 
it  is  certainly  unnecessary ;  for  God  is  ever 
present,  underneath  our  hands  and  among 
our  feet,  in  the  actual  world  which  is  given 
to  us  and  which  we  can  think  of  only  as 
eternal. 

Our  datum  is  the  universe  of  reality.  A 
sound  philosophy  must  discover  God,  if 
there  be  a  God,  here  and  now  at  the  heart 
of  this  reality.  When  we  think  of  it  as 
non-existent  to  make  place  for  a  creator, 
we  are  only  playing  with  an  abstraction 
that  could  never  have  been  formed  save 
as  an  opposite  to  the  given  fact  of  exist- 
ence. 

It  may  further  be  remarked  that  our 
views  of  matter  have  undergone  a  great 
change  since  Locke  gave  to  the  argument 
from  creation  its  first  classic  expression  in 
modern  philosophy.  We  still  hold  that 
the  invisible  things  of  God  are  clearly 
seen  from  the  existence  of  the  world,  be- 
ing understood  by  the  things  that  appear, 
even  His  eternal  power  and  Godhead ;  but 
we  can  talk  no  longer  of  a  making,  manu- 


160  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

facturing,  or  creating  of  matter.  Yet  to 
Locke  such  creation  of  an  incogitative 
material  being  seemed  one  and  the  first 
great  piece  of  God's  workmanship;  and 
for  that  reason  he  refused  to  think  of  mat- 
ter as  co-existent  with  an  eternal  mind. 
Now  were  mind  mere  thought  and  matter 
mere  passive  extension,  as  the  philosophy 
of  the  seventeenth  century  conceived  them, 
we  might  hesitate  to  bring  them  together 
in  one  existence.  But  the  science  of  later 
centuries  has  shown  that  we  can  draw  no 
clear  line  between  cogitative  and  incogita- 
tive beings  (to  use  Locke's  phrases),  and 
that  this  seemingly  passive,  inert  matter 
that  forms  the  stuff  of  the  world  consists 
of  elements  or  molecules,  whose  essence 
lies  in  activity  and  which  can  scarcely  be 
distinguished  from  souls.  Or,  in  more 
precise  terms,  while  Locke's  conception  of 
nature  was  that  of  a  vast  mass  of  dead 
extended  substance,  we  know  it  as  an  in- 
finitude of  activities,  ranging  from  mole- 
cules to  souls  and  forming  an  aggregate 
which  is  a  cosmos,  whose  containing,  vivi- 
fying, and  ordering  principle  is  God.  For 
Locke,  the  Deity  is  needed  only  as  creator 
of  the   inert  world.     For  us,  He   is   the 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.         161 

universal  life  in  which  all  individual  ac- 
tivities are  included  as  moments  of  a  single 
organism.  Of  these  individual  activities 
that  constitute  what  we  call  the  created 
world  some  are  higher  than  others,  some 
have  risen  to  the  relative  independence  of 
self-conscious  souls ;  but  none  of  them  are 
other  than  parts  or  functions  of  the  eter- 
nal life  of  God,  who,  as  the  Scripture  says, 
is  above  all  and  through  all  and  in  all,  and 
in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being. 

We  have  now  reached  a  point  of  view 
from  which  it  may  be  seen  that  the  relation 
of  God  to  the  world  is  not  happily  described 
in  terms  of  causation.  God  is  the  imma- 
nent ground  of  the  universe.  The  universe 
is  the  eternal  expression  of  the  divine  will. 
But  as  ordinarily  understood,  cause  and 
effect  express  a  relation  between  finite  and 
separable  things.  This  is  too  meagre  a 
category  for  representing  the  eternal  con- 
nection between  the  existence  and  the 
external  or  mundane  manifestation  of  the 
infinite  Spirit.  But  in  a  way  not  often 
suspected  the  notion  of  cause  and  effect 
does,  as  Lotze  has  in  recent  times  insisted, 
lead  to  this  very  conception  of  the  God- 


162  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

head.  The  course  of  the  argument  must 
now  be  exhibited,  although  its  abstractness 
demands  fuller  treatment  than  can  be  given 
to  it  in  the  remainder  of  this  lecture. 

The  causal  relation  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary for  our  apprehension  of  the  facts  of 
the  universe.  So  much  even  Hume  admits, 
sceptical  as  his  theory  of  causation  is. 
Now  although  science  can  get  along  with 
abstracting  from  everything  in  this  relation 
save  order  in  time,  we  fall  victims  to  our 
own  abstractions  when  we  suppose  that 
causation  is  nothing  else  than  uniformity 
of  sequence  or  co-existence.  This  is  only 
the  temporal  expression  of  a  real  connection 
between  things.  How  there  came  to  be 
such  a  thing  as  causal  efficiency  in  the 
world  we  can  no  more  explain  than  how 
there  came  to  be  an  actual,  and  not  merely 
a  thinkable,  world,  or  why,  given  reality,  it 
should  not  have  been  in  everlasting  rest 
rather  than  in  an  eternal  state  of  becoming. 
But  given  the  fact  of  efficient  causation, 
we  may,  nevertheless,  ask  what  we  mean 
by  that  fact  and  how  the  universe  must  be 
constituted  to  make  it  possible,  mysterious 
as  in  its  nature  the  fact  will  still  remain. 
In  a  word,  how  can   things   act   on    one 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.  163 

another,  as  we  say  they  do  when  causally 
connected  ? 

This  mutual  influence  is  generally  at- 
tributed to  contact  in  space.  And  in  many 
cases,  if  not  in  all,  the  approximation  of 
one  body  to  another  is  the  indispensable 
condition  of  their  reciprocal  action.  But 
this  obseryation,  customary  as  it  is,  gives 
no  explanation  of  the  real  ground  of  all 
physical  occurrence.  What  inner  con- 
nection is  there  between  contact  in  space 
and  the  exertion  of  physical  action?  If 
two  beings  were  really  independent  of  one 
another,  how  could  a  change  of  position  in 
space  affect  their  self-contained  sufficiency 
or  induce  them  to  become  dependent  upon 
one  another?  If  through  a  certain  co- 
existence in  space  (contact,  for  example) 
two  things  originally  and  essentially  in- 
different to  one  another  are  forced  out  of 
their  indifference  and  compelled  to  have 
respect  to  one  another,  so  that  the  one  orders 
its  states  according  to  the  states  of  the 
other,  then  it  must  be  supposed  that  this 
co-existence  is  more  than  a  co-existence 
in  space,  being  perhaps  a  metaphysical 
co-existence  of  which  the  spatial  is  only  a 
symbol,  and   consequently  that   the   self- 


164  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

sufficing  independency  of  the  two  things 
is  not  actual,  but  apparent  only  in  and 
through  the  isolating  nature  of  space.  At 
any  rate,  mere  spatial  contact  does  not 
explain  why  things  originally  indifferent 
to  one  another,  become  susceptible  of 
mutual  action  or  wherein  action  consists. 
Equally  unintelligible  is  the  popular 
saying  that  in  efficient  causation  some 
influence  passes  oyer  from  the  cause  to  the 
effect.  The  states  of  A  are  A's  and  the 
states  of  B  are  jB's,  and  as  the  first  cannot 
leave  their  attachment  and  wander  over  to 
B^  neither  could  B  receive  them  if  they 
did.  And  were  the  case  otherwise  the 
problem  would  still  remain;  only  instead 
of  asking  why  A^  we  should  now  ask  why 
a  state  of  A  should  produce  a  change  in 
B^  which  was  originally  self-sufficing  and 
independent  of  everything  else.  The 
causal  relation,  in  a  Avord,  cannot  be 
thought  without  contradiction  if  we  con- 
tinue to  represent  it  as  a  transferrence  of 
efficacy  from  one  independent  element  to 
another.  This  conception  of  transeunt 
action  must  be  abandoned.  And  so  much 
was  recognized  by  the  authors  of  the 
theories  of   Occasionalism   and   Pre-estab- 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.  165 

lished  Harmony,  whatever  other  defects 
may  be  found  in  their  systems.  How 
causal  action  is  produced,  how  it  comes 
about  that  the  realization  of  a  certain  con- 
dition effaces  one  state  and  superinduces 
another  in  the  real  world,  no  philosophy 
can  pretend  to  explain.  But  given  this 
indubitable  fact,  then  it  may  be  thinkable 
from  one  point  of  view  and  unthinkable 
from  another.  Now  that  the  occurrence 
of  something  should  be  the  condition  of 
the  occurrence  of  something  else  we  readily 
admit  so  long  as  both  states  fall  within 
the  unity  of  a  single  being.  But  that  a 
state  of  one  being  should  be  the  condition 
of  the  state  of  another  separate  and  inde- 
pendent being  is  little  less  than  contra- 
dictory. The  former  operation  we  call 
immanent,  the  latter  transeunt.  Mani- 
festly then,  the  desideratum  of  thought  is 
that  causality  shall  be  construed  as  the 
immanent  operation  of  one  single  and  real 
being,  as  infinite  as  the  universe  whose 
processes  we  apprehend  through  the  notion 
of  causal  efficiency. 

The  unity  of  being  is  involved  in  the 
notion  of  reciprocal  action  between  indi- 
vidual  beings.     If  A   and  B  were  really 


166  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

independent  and  self-subsisting  unities,  the 
states  of  A  would  be  quite  indifferent  to 
B.  But  ^  and  B  are  so  far  from  this 
mutual  indifference  that  each  concerns 
itself  with  the  states  of  the  other  and  con- 
forms its  own  to  them.  Nothing  remains 
for  us,  therefore,  but  to  surrender  the  vul- 
gar belief  in  the  existence  of  a  multiplicity 
of  independent  things.  There  is  but  one 
real  being ;  and  of  it  A  and  B  and  all  ex- 
isting things  must  be  conceived  as  parts, 
moments,  or  functions.  We  perceive  them 
separately;  but  they  are  not  really  inde- 
pendent and  self-subsisting.  The  difficulty 
in  understanding  the  influence  of  A  upon 
B  vanishes  when  the  false  supposition 
which  we  all  bring  from  "  common  sense," 
namely,  that  finite  things,  so  long  as  they 
exist,  have  an  absolute  existence,  is  re- 
placed by  a  philosophical  monism  that 
treats  them,  not  as  self-subsisting  essences, 
but  as  manifold  elements,  of  which  the 
existence  and  content  (to  appropriate  the 
language  of  Lotze)  is  throughout  condi- 
tioned by  the  nature  and  reality  of  the  one 
self-identical  existence  of  which  they  are 
organic  members.  In  a  case  of  reciprocal 
action,  when  A  becomes  a,  B  becomes  5, 


AS  CAUSE  OF  THE   WORLD.  167 

and  we  naively  describe  the  occurrence  as 
tlie  transeunt  operation  of  one  isolated 
reality  upon  another.  But  when  A  and 
B  are  recognized  as  modifications  of  the 
one  absolute  being,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
change  oi  A  to  a  is  already  a  change  in  this 
absolute  being.  And  if  this  absolute  being 
is  to  maintain  its  identity  it  must  set  up  a 
compensating  change  or  state  5,  which  ap- 
pears to  our  apprehension  as  a  change  in 
the  thing  B.  Thus  what  seems  to  us  an 
action  of  A  upon  B  is  in  truth  only  an  im- 
manent operation  of  the  one  absolute  being. 
In  maintaining  its  own  identity,  it  brings 
about  that  appearance  of  connection  be- 
tween A  (^a}  and  B  (5),  each  of  which  is 
complementary  to  the  other,  in  expressing 
the  ever-abiding  import  of  the  one  absolute 
being. 

Efficient  causation  is  a  fact.  It  cannot 
be  interpreted  without  contradiction  as  an 
action  between  independent  beings.  The 
assumption,  which  in  common  life  we  all 
make,  that  there  is  a  multiplicity  of  origi- 
nally self-subsisting  things,  must  therefore 
be  abandoned.  In  its  place  we  must  set 
the  postulate  of  one  absolute  being,  of 
which  so-called  things  are  merely  states  or 


168  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

modifications.  In  this  absolute  being  and 
for  it,  through  it,  and  by  means  of  it,  and 
above  all  for  the  sake  of  it,  individual 
things  exist,  act,  and  cease  to  exist.  Of 
these  immanent  existences  some  are  mere 
states  of  the  absolute  reality;  others  are 
also  self-conscious  subjects,  which  in  a 
measure  lift  themselves  above  and  outside 
the  universal  basis  of  existence.  The  dif- 
ference between  the  two  groups  is,  in 
Hegelian  language,  that  of  being  an  sicli 
(in  itself,  or  simply)  and  being  fiir  sich 
(for  itself).  To  the  former  class  belongs 
the  whole  world  of  impercipient  things, 
with  all  their  so-called  activities.  To  the 
latter  class  belong  all  spiritual  beings,  that 
is,  every  subject  which  is  conscious  of  its 
states  and  opposes  itself  to  them  as  the 
permanent  unity  that  has  them.  That  is  a 
subject  of  states,  which  distinguishes  itself 
from  its  states.  That  is  a  unity  which  op- 
poses itself  as  one  to  the  multiplicity  of  its 
states.  But  this  spiritual  life,  of  which  we 
are  immediately  aware  in  ourselves,  is  pre- 
cisely what  is  required  of  the  absolute  be- 
ing if  it  is  to  satisfy  the  conditions  for  the 
sake  of  which  it  was  postulated.  The  uni- 
tary, all-embracing  reality,  which  emerged 


AS  CAUSE   OF  THE   WORLD.  169 

from  our  analysis  of  efficient  causation, 
takes  accordingly  the  characteristics  of  an 
infinite  spirit. 

Thus  the  causal  argument  proper  points 
to  anthropocosmic  theism.  And  the  causal 
argument  improperly  so  designated,  namely 
the  inference  from  creation,  contains  at  least 
the  truth  of  the  eternal  dependence  of  the 
world  upon  God.  But  the  nature  of  that 
being  which  is  the  ground  of  the  world, 
and  which  we  have  called  God,  remains  as 
yet  undefined.  We  have,  indeed,  expressed 
a  conviction  of  the  life  and  spirituality  of 
the  one  absolute  reality.  For  we  could 
find  nothing  but  living  spirit  that  was  able 
to  solve  the  problem  of  holding  together 
in  a  unity  those  modifications  or  moments 
into  which  our  analysis  of  causality  com- 
pelled us  to  resolve  all  finite  things.  And 
this  spirit  must  be  volitional  as  well  as 
self-conscious;  for  without  will  there 
could  be  no  activity,  no  efficient  causa- 
tion, no  material  universe.  But  further 
determination  of  that  absolute  life,  as  it  is 
in  itself  and  as  it  manifests  itself  in  nature 
and  in  human  history,  is  necessary  to  the 
satisfaction  both  of  the  philosophical  and 
the  religious  consciousness.      And  this  I 


170  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

hope  will  be  to  some  extent  attained  in 
the  two  remaining  lectures,  the  next  of 
which  will  start  with  the  argument  from 
teleology. 


LECTURE   V. 

BELIEF    IN    GOD    AS    REALIZING    PURPOSE 
IN  THE   WORLD. 

We  have  convinced  ourselves  that  the 
ground  or  immanent  "cause"  of  the  uni- 
verse must  be  an  Infinite  Spirit.  Of  the 
nature  of  spirit  we  are  immediately  aware 
through  our  own  self-conscious  experience. 
In  the  light  of  this  microcosm  we  must 
regard  ultimate  reality  as  a  subject  con- 
scious of  states,  which  it  distinguishes  from 
itself  as  the  unity  that  has  them  and  holds 
them  together,  and  as  a  subject  exerting 
will-power  whereby  changes  are  produced 
in  the  totality  of  these  states,  yet  without 
detriment  to  the  identity  of  the  absolute 
life  they  all  express.  This  is  the  underly- 
ing truth  of  the  argument  from  a  First 
Cause.  It  takes  the  universe  up  into  the 
eternal  life  of  God. 

Popular  thought,  as  usual,  attempts  to 
gain  pictorial  distinctness  by  turning  this 

171 


172  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

organic  union  into  a  process  of  fabrication 
with  well-marked  differences  of  space,  of 
time,  of  power,  and  of  essence  between  the 
universe  and  God.  God  was  first,  and  the 
world  afterwards  ;  and  as  in  the  regressive 
eternity  he  was  alone  before  its  creation, 
so  in  the  progressive  eternity  he  will  be 
alone  after  its  annihilation.  The  world  is 
limited  in  its  extension ;  but  God  fills  the 
immensities  of  space.  The  world  is  a  store- 
house of  second  causes ;  God  is  the  First 
Cause  ;  and  though  it  was  he  who  invested 
the  world  with  its  powers,  that  was  long 
ago,  and  ever  since  the  world  has  gone 
on  of  itself,  while  he  has  been  a  mere 
sabbatic  observer.  God  is  the  absolutely 
perfect  being;  the  universe,  like  every- 
thing finite,  is  imperfect.  Such  is  the  hard 
and  fast  theology  of  popular  thought,  of 
which  the  deism  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury is  the  most  highly  developed  sample. 
But  these  theses  are  all  not  merely  arbi- 
trary and  improbable,  but  unthinkable  and 
contradictory.  What  God  did  he  was  al- 
ways doing ;  and  the  universe  is  the  eter- 
nal manifestation  of  his  activity.  If  you 
call  it  a  creation,  it  is  a  continuous  crea- 
tion.    And  those  second  causes,  which  you 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  173 

think  stored  up  in  the  material  universe, 
—  what  are  thoy  but  centres  of  energy 
through  which  the  one  supranatural  will 
pours  forth  his  all-animating  life  and 
power  ?  The  world  is  not  a  machine, 
charged  with  limited  dynamics,  but  the 
expression  of  one  ever-active  and  inex- 
haustible will.  Furthermore,  that  the  ex- 
ternal manifestation  is  as  boundless  as  the 
life  it  expresses,  science  makes  exceedingly 
probable.  In  any  event,  we  have  not  the 
slightest  reason  to  contrast  the  finitude  of 
the  world  with  the  infinitude  of  God.  At 
the  farthest  imaginable  remove  of  space, 
the  universe  stretches  indefinitely  beyond, 
and  we  can  think  of  it  only  as  illimitable. 
Lastly,  as  the  universe,  at  every  moment 
of  its  existence,  expresses  at  least  a  phase 
of  the  divine  life,  its  so-called  imperfection 
resolves  itself  into  a  momentary  aspect,  a 
part,  of  a  perfect  whole.  At  no  moment 
does  it  reveal  the  absolute  fulness  of  the 
divine  life ;  but  at  no  moment  is  it  any- 
thing else  than  a  function  of  that  divine 
life. 

Nor  let  us  draw  back  from  these  inexor- 
able demands  of  thought  as  pantheistic.  So 
long  as  we  have  an  infinite  spirit  holding 


174  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

communion  with  finite  spirits,  we  need  not 
be  terrified  by  a  terminological  bugbear. 
And  this  essential  of  theism  (of  which  we 
shall  have  more  to  say  in  the  next  lecture) 
is  certainly  not  endangered  by  the  cosmic 
philosophy  I  have  just  propounded  in  refu- 
tation of  deism.  That  nature  should  be 
comprehended  as  the  living  tissue  which  a 
divine  spirit  is  ever  a-weaving  may  be  un- 
acceptable to  the  unreflecting  masses,  as 
it  certainly  is  to  the  materialistic  philoso- 
pher ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  doctrine 
dangerous,  or  even  antipathetic,  to  natural 
theology.  I  cannot  even  agree  with  those 
who  think  that  the  theist  is  concerned  to 
maintain  the  actuality  of  a  divine  life  or 
agency  beyond  the  natural  order  of  things, 
and  prior  to  it.  For  if  the  natural  order 
is  eternal  and  infinite,  as  there  seems  no 
reason  to  doubt,  it  will  be  difficult  to  find 
a  meaning  for  "  beyond  "  and  "  prior."  Of 
this  illimitable,  ever-existing  universe  God 
is  the  inner  ground  and  substance.  He  is, 
of  course,  no  more  identical  with  the  world 
than  a  man's  self  is  identical  with  his 
body.  It  may,  therefore,  readily  be  con- 
ceded that  God  is  more  than  the  contents 
of  nature,  if  by  these  is  meant  a  summa- 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  175 

tion  of  all  natural  existences  as  perceived 
or  perceivable  hy  the  senses.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  no  evidence,  nor  does  any 
religious  need  require  us  to  believe,  that 
the  divine  being  manifest  in  the  universe 
has  an  actual  or  possible  existence  some- 
where else,  in  some  transcendent  sphere ; 
though  in  such  a  supposition  there  is,  of 
course,  no  contradiction,  and  it  has  re- 
cently been  urged  with  noble  fervor  by 
Dr.  Martineau.  That  God  should  speak 
his  whole  being  in  the  world  of  natural, 
animate,  and  human  powers  seems  incredi- 
ble to  this  great  religious  thinker.  Agree- 
ing in  the  doctrine  of  All-immanency^  which 
finds  nothing  in  the  objective  world  but 
God,  he  couples  with  it  the  doctrine  of 
Some-transcendency^  which  makes  God  not 
only  almighty  in  the  sense  of  all  the  infin- 
ite might  there  is,  but  mighty  for  abso- 
lutely all  things,  conceivable  and  real  alike. 
Now,  it  is  no  doubt  possible  that  though 
nature  and  humanity  are  manifestations  of 
God,  they  do  not  express  his  whole  being, 
any  more  than  our  words  are  an  exhaustive 
expression  of  our  personality.  Yet  it  is 
equally  conceivable  that  God  has  revealed 
his  whole  being,  though  man  has  yet  read 


176  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

but  part  of  the  revelation.  And  in  any 
case,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  revelation, 
whether  total  or  partial,  is  a  true  expres- 
sion of  the  divine  nature.  Hence  we  can- 
not follow  Dr.  Martineau  in  treating  the 
cosmos  which  has  come  into  being  as  but  a 
sample  of  an  unknown  number  that  might 
have  been.  Such  a  plurality  of  cosmic 
possibilities  he  thinks  necessary  for  the 
vindication  of  the  ways  of  God,  against 
those  who  complain  of  the  arrangements 
of  the  present  world,  and  attribute  them  to 
weakness,  as  though  God  could  not  have 
done  otherwise. 

In  short,  this  belief  in  a  divine  potency  to 
realize  an  infinitude  of  possible  universes  is 
the  opposite  pole  to  J.  S.  Mill's  suggestion 
of  a  beneficent  but  baffled  designer  of  the 
world.  But  the  motive  to  a  philosophy,  how- 
ever moving  it  may  be,'  is  no  proof  of  the 
validity  of  that  philosophy.  And  I  cannot 
discover  any  theoretical  ground  for  that  no- 
tion of  Some-transcendency  which  plays  so 
large  a  part  in  Dr.  Martineau's  system  of 
theism.  Complete  as  is  his  break  with  de- 
ism, I  cannot  but  regard  this  feature  of  his 
teaching  as  an  unconscious  survival  from 
the  deistic  conception  of  God's  relation  to 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  177 

the  universe.  Of  course,  if  God  created  the 
universe  at  a  definite  moment  of  time,  he 
leads  a  transcendent  life  apart  from  it. 
And  in  imagining  the  process  of  creation, 
the  deist  naturally  represented  the  divine 
builder  as  realizing,  through  his  will,  one 
of  a  number  of  ideas  which  floated  before 
his  mental  vision.  When,  however,  the 
world  is  regarded  as  an  eternal  act,  as  it  is 
by  Dr.  Martineau,  it  becomes  more  diffi- 
cult, though  perhaps  not  absolutely  impos- 
sible, to  preserve  the  analogy  to  a  human 
artificer.  We  have  not  the  same  motive 
as  before  for  emphasizing  that  selective 
will-function  which  we  attribute  to  self- 
conscious  beings  who  begin  events.  Of 
course  this  is  no  reason  for  conceiving 
God  as  devoid  of  will.  But  the  divine 
will  differs  at  least  in  two  respects  from 
the  human.  With  God  volition  and  reali- 
zation are  one.  And  conflicting  motives 
being  absent  from  an  all-wise  being,  the 
divine  will  functions  with  a  perfection  so 
absolute  that,  even  to  a  spectator  who  be- 
lieved in  freedom,  it  would  have  at  least 
the  appearance  of  determination.  Our  best 
analogy  is  not  the  perplexed  and  hesitat- 
ing mechanician,  but  the  good  man,  who, 


178  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

by  a  kind  of  necessity  of  his  character,  can- 
not but  will  the  virtuous  acts  which  ex- 
press that  character.  Of  course  the  good 
man  has  made  this  second  nature  by  moral 
endeavor.  But  the  fact  remains  that  the 
perfection  of  human  nature  is  reached  only 
when  will  has  become,  as  it  were,  second- 
arily automatic. 

Now,  of  all  human  volition,  it  is  this  that 
is  likest  God's.  The  divine  will  can  express 
itself  only  as  it  does,  because  no  other  ex- 
pression would  reveal  what  it  is.  Of  such  a 
will  the  eternal  universe  is  the  eternal  reali- 
zation. If  you  cease  to  think  of  God  under 
the  deistic  conception  of  creator,  author,  de- 
signer, or  maker  of  the  universe,  you  can 
justify  his  ways  only  by  appeal  to  the  move- 
ments of  this  universe,  which  are,  in  truth, 
his  volitions ;  for  any  primeval  selection  and 
realization  of  this  cosmic  scheme,  in  prefer- 
ence to  others  equally  possible,  you  have 
not  the  slightest  ground  to  assume.  The 
world  is  not  one  of  countless  possible 
machines,  as  the  mathematico-mechanical 
genius  of  the  eighteenth  century  conceived 
it,  but  the  organic  expression,  and  the  only 
real  expression,  of  the  life  of  an  eternal 
and  infinite  spirit.     To  imagine  its  place 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  179 

taken  by  another  world  is  to  imagine  God 
other  than  he  is.  The  possibility  of  a 
multitude  of  worlds  is  like  the  possibility 
of  a  multitude  of  gods.  But  a  right 
thought  of  ultimate  reality  must  recognize 
it  as  the  primal  ground  of  distinction  be- 
tween the  actual  and  the  possible,  —  a  dis- 
tinction, therefore,  not  applicable  to  that 
reality  itself. 

As  popular  thought  has  turned  the  truth 
of  a  self-revealing  spirit  into  the  picture 
of  an  external  creator  of  the  world,  so  it 
has  converted  the  fact  of  arrangement, 
especially  noticeable  in  the  realm  of  or- 
ganic life,  into  an  argument  for  the  exist- 
ence of  a  designer  of  the  world.  From 
the  orderly  arrangements  and  adaptations 
that  appear  an  inference  is  made  to  a 
rational  creative  architect  of  the  universe. 
In  the  history  of  philosophy  this  step  ap- 
pears to  have  been  first  consciously  taken 
by  Anaxagoras.  To  him  the  beauty,  har- 
mony, and  design  in  the  world  seemed  in- 
explicable save  as  the  work  of  a  rational, 
intending,  and  omnipotent  intelligence  or 
z^oO?.  His  predecessors  inclined  to  material- 
ism or  to  hylozoism.  But  from  this  time 
onward  designing  mind  remained  a  cosmic 


180  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

principle  in  the  schools  of  Greek  philos- 
ophy. Socrates  is  especially  noteworthy 
for  the  prominence  he  gives  to  ends  in  the 
interpretation  of  nature,  though  he  con- 
ceives them  rather  superficially  and  almost 
altogether  in  relation  to  human  welfare  as 
a  final  object.  This  anthropocentric  tele- 
ology continued  to  flourish  in  the  post- 
Aristotelian  schools,  and  in  the  dogmatic 
theology  of  Christendom  it  was  an  essen- 
tial constituent.  It  was  the  natural  coun- 
terpart of  a  geocentric  astronomy,  and  both 
received  their  doom  at  the  hand  of  Coper- 
nicus. So  that  at  the  present  day  we 
should  all  agree  in  the  observation  of 
Hegel  that,  though  wine  be  useful  to  man, 
neither  religion  nor  science  is  profited  by 
supposing  the  cork-tree  to  exist  for  the 
sake  of  the  corks  which  are  cut' from  its 
bark  to  serve  as  stoppers  for  wine-bottles. 
Obviously  from  this  class  of  adaptations 
to  external  ends,  all  of  which  are  incidental 
results  of  the  otherwise  established  con- 
stitution of  natural  objects  and  forces,  no 
inference  can  be  made  to  the  character  of 
the  power  that  animates  the  universe. 
The  modern  teleologist,  therefore,  turns  to 
adaptations   to   internal   ends.     These   he 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  181 

finds,  in  living  organisms,  where  tlie  parts 
exist  and  act  for  the  sake  of  the  whole, 
by  the  idea  of  which  they  seem  to  be  con- 
trolled. Here  at  any  rate  there  appears 
to  be  indication  of  an  aim  in  nature.  Not 
that  the  teleologist  regards  the  rest  of  the 
world  as  aimless.  On  the  contrary,  he  is 
persuaded  that  the  order  of  the  whole  cos- 
mos, which  science  is  only  beginning  to 
reveal  to  us,  is  evidence  of  an  intelligent 
cause.  But  the  marks  of  intentionality  are 
more  obvious  in  the  field  of  organic  nature 
than  elsewhere.  The  features  of  intend- 
ing will,  nowhere  absent,  are  especially 
discernible  in  the  adaptations  and  adjust- 
ments of  the  parts  and  functions  of  living 
beings.  And  it  is  these  select  and  con- 
spicuous instances  that  form  the  starting 
point  of  the  so-called  argument  from  design. 
This  argument,  under  the  designatiorl  of 
the  physico-theological  proof  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God  won  the  respect,  if  not  the 
assent,  of  the  "  all-destroying  "  Kant.  Of 
all  proofs  to  establish  the  existence  of  a 
Supreme  Being,  Kant  pronounced  it  the 
oldest,  the  clearest,  and  the  most  conso- 
nant with  human  reason.  And  in  spite 
of   later    attempts    at    improvement,    his 


182  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

analysis  of  the  argument  is  still  perhaps 
the  best  that  has  ever  been  given.  He 
enumerates  four  principal  points.  First, 
there  are  in  the  world  clear  indications 
of  intentional  arrangements,  various  and 
boundless.  Secondly,  these  could  not  have 
originated  spontaneously  from  the  nature 
of  things  themselves,  but  only  through 
means  selected  and  arranged  on  pui-pose 
by  a  rational  disposing  principle,  accord- 
ing to  certain  fundamental  ideas.  Thirdly, 
there  exists,  therefore,  a  free,  intelligent 
cause  of  the  world.  Fourthly,  the  unity 
of  this  cause  may  be  inferred  from  the 
unity  of  the  reciprocal  relations  of  the 
parts  of  the  world. 

Without  inquiring  at  present  into  the 
inner  connection  and  consistency  of  this 
argument,  I  may  observe  that  it  cannot 
get  under  way  at  all  without  affirming  the 
presence  of  aims  and  intentions  in  the 
world.  Intentionality  we  know  from  our 
own  self-conscience  experience.  The  tele- 
ological  theist  ought,  therefore,  to  compare 
the  works  of  nature  with  the  purposive 
activity  of  man  to  discover  whether  they 
have  the  marks  of  intending  thought. 
Given  design,  there    must  of  course  be  a 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE,  183 

designer;  but  that  there  is  design  any- 
where in  the  world  nothing  but  the  dis- 
covery of  analogies  to  the  intellectual  pur- 
pose of  man  can  make  even  probable. 

It  was  much  easier  in  the  eighteenth 
century  than  it  is  to-day  to  be  persuaded 
of  the  presence  of  design  in  the  universe. 
The  growth  of  chemistry  and  biology  has 
made  impossible  to  us  that  mechanical  view 
of  nature  which  the  physics  of  Galileo 
and  Newton  impressed  indelibly  upon  the 
mind  of  earlier  generations.  Conceiving 
God  as  an  extraneous  maker  of  the  world, 
they  regarded  living  organisms  as  curiously 
wrought  machines  which,  more  than  any 
other  piece  of  the  divine  handiwork, 
showed  the  purposive  activity  of  the  great 
artificer.  Indeed,  the  whole  inanimate  uni- 
verse, from  the  structure  of  the  solar  sys- 
tem to  the  fall  of  an  apple,  was  accounted 
for  by  the  inherent  qualities  of  matter  and 
the  empirical  laws  of  motion,  so  that  in 
the  field  of  cosmic  infinitude  God  was 
needed  only  as  original  creator  of  unar- 
ranged  materials.  But  for  the  science  of 
that  day  living  organisms  were  not  amen- 
able to  similar  treatment.  And  not  only 
did  they  demand  a  creator  for  their  matter, 


184  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

but  a  designer  for  their  balanced  and  har- 
monious forms.  The  arrangement  of  mat- 
ter in  the  inorganic  world  seemed  natural 
and  necessary;  in  the  organic,  supernatural 
and  contingent.  Here,  therefore,  reflec- 
tion found  machines  in  which  the  divine 
artificer  with  wondrous  skill  and  cunning 
had  embodied  plans  and  realized  ends  of 
transcendent  intelligence.  And  this  re- 
mains the  view  of  the  generality  of  man- 
kind until  this  day. 

But  it  is  no  longer  so  inevitable  for  the 
scientist.  The  scientific  view  of  nature 
has  been  transformed  by  the  recent  discov- 
eries of  the  conservation  of  energy,  of  the 
dynamics  of  molecules,  and  of  the  cellular 
structure  of  organisms.  Had  the  thinkers 
of  the  eighteenth  century  been  aware  of 
these  later  results  in  physics,  chemistry, 
and  biology,  there  can  be  little  doubt  they 
would  have  left  us  a  purely  mechanical 
or,  at  any  rate,  naturalistic  account  of  or- 
ganic beings.  This  would  have  been  quite 
conformable  with  their  habitual  mode  of 
thought.  But  whether  such  expulsion  of 
purpose  from  the  organic  sphere  would 
have  been  justifiable  is  by  no  means  so  evi- 
dent.    All  that  I  am  maintaining   is  the 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  185 

greater  difficulty  of  establishing  the  pres- 
ence of  purpose  in  the  world  under  the 
changed  conditions  of  contemporary  sci- 
ence. We  have  gained  so  much  more 
knowledge  of  nature's  operations  that  even 
the  correlation  of  parts  and  functions  in 
living  organisms  has  no  longer  that  unique 
unexplicableness  that  stamped  it  for  earlier 
thinkers  the  special  product  of  creative 
purpose. 

This  explains  why  a  philosophical  the- 
ologian like  Dr.  Flint  virtually  abandons 
the  argument  from  design.  He  misses  the 
analogy  between  the  works  of  nature  and 
the  products  of  art.  The  former,  he  says, 
disclose  adaptations,  but  not  purposes.  An 
organism  is  defined  as  a  systematic  unity 
whose  parts  are  definitely  related  to  one 
another  and  co-ordinated  to  a  common  is- 
sue. In  it  we  find  an  orderly  arrangement. 
And  it  is  the  presence  of  order,  not  of  pur- 
pose or  intention,  that  justifies,  according 
to  Dr.  Flint,  our  inference  to  a  divine  in- 
telligence. 

Still,  we  shall  find  it  difficult  to  surren^ 
der  altogether  our  teleological  view  of  the 
world.  Though  unable  in  perhaps  the  ma<- 
jority  of  cases  to  assign  ends  to  the  nicely 


186  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

co-ordinated  structures  of  living  beings,  we 
cannot  but  believe  that  they  do  actually, 
realize  ends  preconceived  by  intelligence. 
Of  course  it  must  not  be  hastily  assumed 
that  every  conspicuous  property  or  function 
which  we  find  in  objects,  is  their  intrinsic 
end.  "  That  the  property  of  rain  is  to  wet, 
and  fire  to  burn,"  is  of  interest  only  in  the 
natural  philosophy  of  Touchstone.  Again, 
though  conic  sections  are  described  by  the 
movements  of  the  planets,  it  would  be  rash 
to  suppose  such  orbits  were  the  final  cause 
of  their  existence.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
scarcely  admits  of  doubt  that  the  end  of 
the  eye  is  sight,  and  of  the  ear  hearing.  Of 
this  kind  is  the  abiding  truth,  as  I  think 
every  candid  person  must  concede,  in  the 
so-called  argument  from  design.  But  this 
fact  tells  us  nothing  of  the  intelligence 
that  had  a  preconception  of  the  end.  And 
for  anything  we  can  see  to  the  contrary,  it 
may  be  immanent  in  the  original  nature  of 
the  elements,  or  if  it  is  external  to  them,  it 
may  have  its  seat  in  a  plurality  of  creative 
spirits.  There  is  much,  therefore,  wanting 
before  a  theistic  structure  can  be  reared  on 
the  teleological  basis.  Indeed,  did  we  not 
already  know  from  the  cosmological  argu- 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  187 

ment  of  the  existence  of  one  infinite  spirit 
as  ground  of  all  existence,  we  should,  I 
think,  never  become  convinced  of  it  by 
means  of  the  argument  from  design.  But 
given  that  belief  in  anthropocosmic  theism, 
we  readily  find  in  the  adaptations  of  or- 
ganisms the  expression  of  an  infinite  self- 
conscious  will  and  intelligence. 

Of  course  the  case  would  be  much  worse 
were  the  reality  of  purpose  in  the  world 
denied  or  explained  away.  The  teleologist 
holds  that  living  beings  are  conspicuous 
examples  of  the  realization  of  an  end,  for 
the  sake  of  which  all  their  adjustments  and 
adaptations  originated.  That  end  could  be 
conceived  only  by  an  intelligence.  But  as 
the  animal's  organs  are  ready-made  gifts 
of  nature,  and  its  instincts  original  endow- 
ments, intelligence,  it  is  held,  works  through 
it  as  a  medium  rather  than  in  it  as  a  sub- 
ject. Organisms  do  not  shape  themselves 
by  self-conscious  reflection;  and  yet  they 
are  the  embodiment  of  reason.  It  is  this 
circumstance  that  justifies  their  comparison 
with  works  of  art,  and,  in  spite  of  many 
dissimilarities,  suggests  the  inference  to 
an  organizing  intelligence.  But  manifestly 
this  inference  would  be  supererogatory,  if 


188  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

it  were  thinkable  that  ends  might  be  real- 
ized in  the  organic  world  without  any 
preconception  of  them.  In  the  products 
of  human  skill  the  idea  always  goes  before 
and  guides  the  movements  of  the  hand. 
And  as  our  own  causation  is  the  only  one 
we  know  immediately,  and  know  on  the 
inner  as  well  as  on  the  outer  side,  we 
have  taken  it  as  a  universal  type,  and 
supposed  with  Aristotle  that  without  an 
idea  there  could  be  no  action  directed 
upon  an  end.  And  as  the  idea  was  not  to 
be  found  in  the  living  organisms  them- 
selves, it  was  naturally  located  in  a  su- 
preme intelligence  that  worked  through 
them.  But  the  modern  philosophy  of  un- 
consciousness would  change  all  that.  It 
sets  out,  not  with  self-conscious  intelligence 
which  is  nearest  and  best  known,  but  with 
animal  instincts  which  are  earlier,  more 
distant,  and  more  opaque.  Because  there 
is  no  intention  on  the  part  of  the  animal 
that  follows  its  instincts,  it  is  assumed  that 
nature,  working  blindly,  may  realize  ends. 
This  universal  mode  of  operation  comes  in 
man  to  the  light  of  consciousness.  Man 
knows  that  he  realizes  ends  ;  but,  according 
to  Schopenhauer,  the  end  also  operates  as 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  189 

a  motive  on  a  being  that  knows  it  not. 
Nor  is  this  paradox  relieved  by  Hartmann's 
motiving  the  will  with  an  unconscious  idea. 
The  contradiction  remains,  that  ends  un- 
conceived  should  ever  become  motives  for 
their  own  appropriate  realization.  To  hu- 
man understanding  this  is  simply  unin- 
telligible. It  asserts  and  denies  in  the 
same  breath.  Whether  or  not  there  be 
purpose  in  the  world,  no  end  can  exercise 
an  influence  on  its  own  realization  unless 
it  be  actually  present  to  an  intelligence. 

The  philosophy  of  unconsciousness  is  of 
course  pledged  to  the  ejection  of  a  conscious 
intelligence  from  nature.  That  it  should, 
however,  cleave  so  tenaciously  to  ends,  of 
which  that  intelligence  alone  is  the  condi- 
tion, is  a  remarkable  testimony  to  the 
strength  of  our  natural  conviction  of  the 
presence  of  purpose  in  the  world.  Unfor- 
tunately this  ineradicable  belief  in  design, 
this  rejection  of  a  purposeless  universe,  has 
been  associated  in  the  popular  mind  with 
certain  theories  regarding  the  realization 
of  purpose,  which  modern  science  has  ren- 
dered obsolete.  The  ordinary  teleologist 
deems  himself  under  obligation  to  set  an 
impassable  barrier  between  the  inorganic 


190  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

and  the  organic  world.  So  that  in  the 
legitimate  inquiry  of  science  for  a  natural 
origin  and  development  of  living  organisms 
he  sees  something  antagonistic  to  his 
belief  in  design.  Just  as  the  plain  man 
wants  a  God  who  is  separate  in  space  and 
time,  in  essence  and  action  from  the  only 
reality  he  knows  anything  about,  so  his 
faith  in  the  intentionality  of  things  would 
be  surer  if  the  field  of  organic  nature  were 
hedged  about  and  separated  from  the  inor- 
ganic, and  the  natural  law  that  reigns 
inexorably  in  the  latter  held  only  dubious 
and  accommodating  sway  in  the  former. 
Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the 
generality  of  mankind  emphasize  the  won- 
derful and  unaccountable  constitution  of 
living  organisms  rather  than  the  end  or 
purpose  it  embodies.  For  this  makes  the 
postulate  of  a  wonder-working  creator  all 
the  more  necessary.  Thus  beside  the  ma- 
terial world  Avith  its  natural  processes, 
conceived  of  vaguely  as  once  non-existent 
though  now  self-subsistent,  popular  thought 
sets  up  a  second  principle  as  supernatural 
and  ever-active  ground  of  living  beings 
which  it  mysteriously  produces  or  creates. 
This  conception  of  the  argument  from 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  191 

design  has  been  outgrown  by  modern  views 
of  nature  and  irrevocably  shattered  by 
Darwinian  biology.  The  scientist  no, 
longer  believes  in  external  interference 
with  the  order  of  nature.  The  formation 
of  living  organisms  must  be  explained  by 
processes  as  purely  natural  as  the  occur- 
rences of  the  physical  world.  It  is  true 
that  this  ideal  is  as  yet  unrealized  in  the 
case  of  the  first  germs  of  life.  But  there 
is  nothing  absurd  in  the  supposition  that 
these  should  one  day  be  derived  from  the 
elements  of  the  material  world.  And, 
however  that  may  be,  the  growth  of  germs 
can  already  be  understood  as  a  physico- 
chemical  process.  Hence  even  if  conscious 
design  is  operative  in  the  organic  world,  it 
realizes  its  ends  in  accordance  with  those 
laws  of  mechanism  which  in  the  popular 
estimation  are  exclusive  of  design.  An 
end  would  be  for  us  as  good  as  non- 
existent which  could  not  express  itself 
through  the  regular  sequences  and  co- 
existences of  the  natural  world.  And  an 
end  so  expressing  itself  must  be  regarded 
as  the  necessary  product  of  causal  con- 
nections. It  is  not,  as  popular  thought 
puts  it,  that  an  external  designer  brings 


192  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

together  at  any  given  moment  the  means 
necessary  for  the  realization  of  the  end; 
but  from  moment  to  moment  the  status  of 
the  natural  world  as  a  whole  and  in  every 
detail  is  precisely  what  it  is  determined 
to  be  by  the  condition  of  its  own  inherent 
powers  and  agencies.  If,  therefore,  in  the 
organic  world  ends  are  realized,  as  we 
believe  they  are,  the  ground  must  be  sought 
not  outside  the  realm  of  natural  law,  but 
within  it  —  or  rather  in  an  intelligence 
whose  purpose  is  expressed  through  the 
medium  of  natural  law.  In  a  word,  the 
teleology  of  to-day  must  be  perfectly  com- 
patible with  the  scientific  postulate  of 
universal  and  invariable  causality. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  Darwinian 
theory  of  natural  selection  has  come  into 
such  violent  conflict  with  the  popular  view 
of  design.  Darwin  maintained  there  was 
a  natural  cause  for  the  development  of 
life  with  all  its  organs,  functions,  and  in- 
stincts ;  and  that  in  any  given  case  the 
finished  organ,  function,  instinct,  or  entire 
organism  was  only  one  surviving  form  out 
of  many  possible  forms,  and  owed  its  pre- 
dominance over  them  to  the  greater  bene- 
fits, as  regards  food,  protection,  and   the 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  193 

like,  which  it  ensured  to  its  survivor  in 
the  universal  struggle  for  existence.  The 
Darwinian  view  is  no  doubt  destructive 
of  the  ordinary  conception  of  design.  In 
bringing  the  whole  organic  field  under  the 
rule  of  natural  law  it  has  taken  a  step 
which  most  teleologists  still  hesitate  to 
follow.  And  in  substituting  for  specially 
designed  and  sudden  creations  the  idea 
of  slowly  differentiating  organisms  between 
which  struggle  for  life  is  the  only  arbiter, 
it  shocks  common  sense  with  the  sugges- 
tion alike  of  a  chance  government  of  the 
world  and  of  a  reckless  prodigality  of 
material  in  the  attainment  of  its  final  con- 
figuration. But  no  theory  can  gainsay  this 
apparent  wastefulness  of  life  with  the  facts 
of  biology  before  our  eyes.  And  what  is 
here  called  chance  is  really  causation,  but 
causation  meandering  through  obscure  and 
mazy  paths  where  we  had  supposed  that 
the  direct  way  was  the  only  possible  line 
of  advance.  But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
regard  Darwinism  as  a  refutation  of  the 
doctrine  of  ends  in  nature.  It  is  merely 
the  refutation  of  a  particular  theory, 
though  a  venerable  one,  regarding  the 
mode  in  which  ends  are  realized  in  the 


194  BELIEF  IN  GOD, 

organic  world.  No  doubt  for  the  great 
majority  who  are  unable  to  distinguish 
between  the  accidents  and  the  essence  of 
teleology,  the  collapse  of  the  older  biology 
is  synonymous  with  the  doom  of  the  argu- 
ment from  design.  But  sober  reflection 
will  convince  us  that  it  only  changes  the 
location  and  mode  of  realizing  ends.  If 
everything  in  the  universe  were  derived 
according  to  natural  laws  from  a  primordial 
arrangement  of  elements,  we  might  be 
surprised  that  things  had  developed  in  one 
way  rather  than  in  another,  but  we  could, 
nevertheless,  entertain  no  doubt  that  if 
intention  were  manifest  in  the  issue,  it 
must  already  have  been  present  at  the 
beginning.  And  by  a  wonderful  forecast 
of  genius,  Paley  virtually  accepted  the 
modern  theory  of  evolution. 

"  Truly  the  light  is  sweet,  and  a  pleasant 
thing  it  is  for  the  eyes  to  behold  the  sun." 
The  eye  has  supplied  the  teleologist  with 
more  examples  of  intention  than  any  other 
organ.  Suppose  now  that  Darwin  is  correct 
in  assuming  that  natural  selection,  by  a 
successive  consolidation  of  favorable  varia- 
tions, has  converted  the  simple  apparatus 
of  an  optic  nerve,  coated  with  pigment  and 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  195 

invested  by  transparent  membrane,  into 
the  perfect  human  «eye  with  its  nerves  and 
muscles,  its  lenses  and  humors,  its  retina 
and  coatings,  and  all  its  innumerable  con- 
trivances for  perfect  adaptation  to  the 
function  of  seeing.  Is  then  the  eye  the 
realization  of  no  divine  idea?  Rather  is 
not  all  this  mechanism  of  variations,  strug- 
gles, and  inheritances  in  the  organic  world, 
which  awaited  so  long  the  interpretation 
of  Darwin,  merely  the  preordained  means 
for  the  realization  of  ideas  eternally  present 
to  the  supreme  intelligence  and  in  a  manner 
already  prefigured  in  the  lowest  germs  of 
life  from  which  otherwise  they  could  never 
have  been  developed  into  actuality  ?  Divine 
intention  does  not  become  an  accidental 
result  when  you  have  described  its  manner 
of  working,  however  surprising  that  manner 
may  be. 

It  will  be  interesting  and  instructive  to 
study  Darwin's  own  views  of  the  bearing 
of  natural  selection  upon  the  teleological 
conception  of  the  world.  In  his  systematic 
works  there  is  not  infrequent  allusion  to 
the  subject,  but  in  the  delightful  volumes 
of  Life  and  Letters  recently  given  to  the 
public,  we  have  the  inmost  confessions  of 


196  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

a  candid  soul,  unbaring  itself  to  the  view 
of  trusted  friends.  Readers  of  Macaulay's 
biography  will  recall  his  remark  that,  if 
Clarissa  Harlow e  had  been  lost,  he  and 
his  sisters  could  have  reproduced  it  from 
memory.  It  was  not  a  novel,  but  a  classic 
treatise  on  teleology,  that  left  a  similarly 
indelible  impress  upon  the  mind  of  Macau- 
lay's  great  scientific  contemporary.  On 
November  15,  1859,  Darwin  wrote  to  Sir 
John  Lubbock :  "  I  do  not  think  I  hardly 
ever  admired  a  book  more  than  Paley's 
'Natural  Theology.'  I  could  almost  for- 
merly have  said  it  by  heart."  That  Paley's 
argument  from  design  in  nature  was,  how- 
ever, invalidated  by  the  discovery  of  nat- 
ural selection,  Darwin  firmly  believed. 
Nevertheless  he  refused  to  regard  the  uni- 
verse as  the  product  of  blind  necessity; 
but  a  satisfactory  setting  for  his  teleology 
in  relation  to  his  science  he  was  never  able 
to  achieve.  His  attitude  is  best  indicated 
in  the  correspondence  with  Asa  Gray. 
Writing  on  May  22,  1860,  he  said:  "I 
cannot  anyhow  be  contented  to  view  this 
wonderful  universe,  and  especially  the  na- 
ture of  man,  and  to  conclude  that  every- 
thing is  the  result  of  brute  force.     I  am 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  197 

inclined  to  look  at  everything  as  result- 
ing from  designed  laws,  with  the  details, 
whether  good  or  bad,  left  to  the  working 
out  of  what  we  may  call  chance.  Not  that 
this  notion  at  all  satisfies  me."  And  again, 
on  June  5, 1861 :  "  I  have  been  led  to  think 
more  on  this  subject  of  late,  and  grieve 
to  say  that  I  come  to  differ  more  from  you. 
It  is  not  that  designed  variation  makes,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  my  deity,  'natural  selec- 
tion,' superfluous ;  but  rather  from  studying 
lately  domestic  variation,  and  seeing  what 
an  enormous  field  of  undesigned  variability 
there  is  ready  for  natural  selection  to  ap- 
propriate for  any  purpose  useful  to  each 
creature."  And  shortly  after,  on  Septem- 
ber 17,  this  answer  to  Gray's  question  what 
would  convince  him  of  design :  "  If  I  saw 
an  angel  come  down  to  teach  us  good,  and 
I  was  convinced  from  others  seeing  him 
that  I  was  not  mad,  I  should  believe  in 
design.  If  I  could  be  convinced  thoroughly 
that  life  and  mind  was,  in  an  unknown 
way,  a  function  of  other  imponderable 
force,  I  should  be  convinced.  If  man  was 
made  of  brass  or  iron,  and  no  way  con- 
nected with  any  other  organism  which  had 
ever  lived,  I  should  perhaps  be  convinced." 


198  BELIEF  IiY  GOD, 

In  the  short  but  pathetic  chapter  on 
"  Religion,"  the  editor  has  brought  to- 
gether a  number  of  Darwin's  deliverances 
on  the  subject  of  design,  especially  in  rela- 
tion to  the  teleological  argument  for  the 
existence  of  God,  "  In  my  most  extreme 
fluctuations,"  he  wrote,  as  late  as  1879,  "  I 
have  never  been  an  atheist,  in  the  sense  of 
denying  the  existence  of  a  God."  lie 
explicitly  states  what  ought  never  to  have 
been  doubted,  that  the  theory  of  evolution 
is  "  quite  compatible  with  the  belief  in  a 
God."  And  to  several  correspondents  he 
repeats  in  substance  what  he  wrote  to  a 
Dutch  student  in  1873  :  "  The  impossibility 
of  conceiving  that  this  grand  and  wondrous 
universe,  with  our  conscious  selves,  arose 
through  chance,  seems  to  me  the  chief 
argument  for  the  existence  of  God."  It  is 
true  he  is  always  haunted  by  the  doubt 
that  this  argument  may  not  be  valid.  To 
the  Duke  of  Argyle's  remark  that  some  of 
the  Darwinian  writings  themselves  brought 
to  light  the  obvious  workings  of  mind  in 
nature,  he  replied,  "  Well,  that  often  comes 
over  me  with  overwhelming  force,  but  at 
other  times,"  and  he  shook  his  head 
vaguely,  "  it  seems  to  go  away."     Perhaps 


AS  REALIZING  PUHPOSE.  199 

his  habitual  mode  of  thought  is  most  com- 
pletely and  precisely  expressed  in  the  fol- 
lowing sentence  from  a  letter  to  Miss 
Wedgwood:  "The  mind  refuses  to  look 
at  this  universe,  being  what  it  is,  with- 
out having  been  designed ;  yet,  where  one 
would  most  expect  design,  viz.  in  the 
structure  of  a  sentient  being,  the  more  I 
think  on  the  subject,  the  less  I  can  see 
proof  of  design." 

This  is  the  heart  of  Darwin's  teleological 
problem.  He  conceived  that  natural  selec- 
tion could  produce  the  most  exquisite  struc- 
tures, if  attainable  through  gradations,  as 
he  knew  in  general  they  were ;  and  finding 
nothing  of  design  in  the  action  of  natural 
selection,  which  is  simply  struggle  for  life 
and  survival  of  the  fittest,  he  had  no  place 
for  design  in  the  organic  world,  where,  if 
anywhere,  it  ought  to  have  been  present. 
But  what  of  those  variations  which  are 
the  material  upon  which  natural  selection 
works?  That  they  too  were  undesigned 
Darwin  convinced  himself  by  a  very  strik- 
ing argument.  If  we  are  not  to  believe 
that  the  forms  are  preordained  of  the 
broken  fragments  of  rock  tumbled  from 
a  precipice,  which  are  fitted  together  by 


200  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

man  to  build  his  house,  why  should  we 
believe  that  the  variations  of  domestic  ani- 
mals or  plants  are  preordained  for  the  sake 
of  the  breeds  ?  And  if  Providence  did  not 
design  for  man's  amusement  those  varia- 
tions in  the  rock  pigeon,  out  of  which  man 
has  yet  made  by  his  own  selective  accumu- 
lation the  pouter  or  the  fan-tail  pigeon, 
why  should  it  be  imagined  that  the  varia- 
tions by  which,  through  the  action  of 
natural  selection,  the  beautifully  adapted 
woodpecker  has  been  formed,  were  provi- 
dentially designed?  Broken  stones  are  not 
produced  by  nature  in  order  that  men  may 
build  houses  out  of  them.  Peculiarities 
of  domestic  animals  are  not  produced  by 
nature  in  order  that  breeders  may  consoli- 
date them  into  new  varieties.  Why,  then, 
are  variations  in  living  beings  held  to 
be  designed,  when,  through  the  selective 
action  of  the  struggle  for  life,  those  best 
adapted  to  the  environment  are  consoli- 
dated and  perpetuated  in  new  forms  ?  If 
the  principle  of  design  is  given  up  in  the 
one  case,  Darwin's  conviction  was  that 
there  was  no  shadow  of  reason  for  retaiu- 
ing  it  in  the  other;  and  to  Asa  Gray,  who 
believed  in  designed  variations,  he  wrote 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  201 

(November  26,  1860)  :  "  I  cannot  believe 
this ;  and  I  think  you  would  have  to  believe 
that  the  tail  of  the  fan-tail  was  led  to  vary 
in  the  number  and  direction  of  its  feathers 
in  order  to  gratify  the  caprice  of  a  few 
men."  To  the  same  effect  he  writes  (April, 
1860)  to  Lyell  about  the  crop  of  the  pouter, 
which  pigeon-fanciers  have  produced :  "  It 
seems  preposterous  that  a  maker  of  a  uni- 
verse should  care  about  the  crop  of  a 
pigeon,  solely  to  j)lease  man's  silly  fancies. 
But  if  you  agree  with  me  in  thinking  such 
an  interposition  of  the  Deity  uncalled  for, 
I  can  see  no  reason  whatever  for  believing 
in  such  interpositions  in  the  case  of  natural 
beings,  in  which  strange  and  admirable 
peculiarities  have  been  naturally  selected 
for  the  creature's  own  benefit." 

Forcible  as  this  reasoning  is  —  and  Dar- 
win wrote  in  his  autobiography,  in  1876, 
that  he  had  never  seen  it  answered —  I 
cannot  but  think  it  gains  much  of  its 
plausibility  from  a  confusion  between  in- 
trinsic and  extrinsic  ends.  It  must  be 
freely  acknowledged  that  neither  the 
stones  are  there  for  the  sake  of  the  house- 
builder  nor  the  extra  tail-feathers  for  the 
sake   of    the   pigeon-f 


^v 


202  BELIEF  /iV  GOD. 

there,  they  may  be  utilized  for  human  ends, 
and  that  whether,  considered  in  themselves, 
they  are  purposive  or  purposeless.  But 
that  men  can  accomplish  their  designs  by 
means  of  existing  objects,  with  properties 
and  activities  of  their  own,  is  a  matter  of 
course,  and  proves  nothing  further,  cer- 
tainly not  the  absence  of  ends  inherent  in 
the  nature  of  those  things  which  also  hap- 
pen to  be  serviceable  to  the  plans  of  men. 
The  intentionality  that  looks  through  the 
eye  is  not  affected  by  the  accidental  cir- 
cumstance that  breeders  may  consolidate 
chance  ocular  peculiarities  into  some  fixed 
habit.  That  is  man's  design,  a  design  su- 
perimposed upon  the  realized  end  of  na- 
ture. But  suppose  it  is  shoAvn  that  the 
eye  itself  is  the  surviving  summation  of 
a  series  of  variations  of  that  sort,  what 
then  ?  I  should  answer  that  as  the  varia- 
tions, after  sifting  through  natural  selec- 
tion, have  produced  the  eye,  without 
interference  on  the  part  of  man,  it  may  be 
supposed  their  preordained  goal.  And  as 
I  find  it  impossible  to  believe  that  a  blindly 
working  nature  should  realize  ends  of 
which  it  has  no  knowledge,  I  conclude 
there  is  an  intelligence  working  through 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  203 

nature,  with  a  preconception  of  this  idea, 
just  as  it  is  the  intelligence  of  the  fancier, 
with  his  antecedent  idea  of  a  pouter  or 
fantail,  that  enables  him  to  utilize  the 
means  for  calling  them  into  existence.  I 
admit  that  the  means  by  which  nature's 
designs  are  realized  appear  to  us,  under 
the  Darwinian  theory,  to  partake  of  waste- 
ful and  ridiculous  excess.  But  it  should 
be  remembered  that  in  the  life  of  the  eter- 
nal spirit,  in  whom  and  through  whom  are 
all  beings,  the  forms  that  are  quenched 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  may  fulfil 
ends  just  as  truly  as  the  more  successful 
forms  that  gain  a  somewhat  longer  history. 
There  are  ends  everywhere  in  nature. 
We  are  not  always  able  to  describe  them 
with  so  much  certainty  as  in  the  case  of 
the  eye.  These  ends  shape  the  nature  and 
course  of  the  variations  —  though  through 
causal  connections  —  out  of  which  organ- 
isms and  organs  are  consolidated.  Over 
and  above  their  own  immanent  ends, 
organisms  also  lend  themselves  to  the 
extrinsic  designs  of  man.  These  proposi- 
tions, which  seem  to  me  to  describe  a  tena- 
ble system  of  teleology  in  its  relation  to 
the  Darwinian  theory  of  natural  selection, 


204  BELIEF  m  GOD. 

are  not  in  a  single  instance  in  conflict  with 
that  theory,  or  with  the  facts  of  conscious 
selection  on  the  part  of  agriculturists  and 
horticulturists.  By  this  system  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  location  of  design  is  carried 
back  from  the  existing  to  the  earliest  or- 
ganisms and  their  variations;  or  if  you 
choose  to  make  a  leap  that  science  cannot 
yet  take,  to  the  molecular  constitution  of 
the  so-called  inorganic  world.  Here,  in 
fact,  with  unerring  instinct  the  most  phil- 
osophical follower  of  Darwin  has  already 
domiciled  it,  though  without  recognition  of 
the  spirituality  of  that  primordial  reality 
to  which  must  belong  the  purposes  realized 
in  the  course  of  evolution.  If  without 
going  so  far  we  stop  at  the  primitive  germs 
of  life,  must  we  not  think  of  them  as  en- 
dowed with  a  constitution  capable  of  varia- 
tion only  along  certain  preordained  lines  of 
development?  Such,  at  any  rate,  is  the 
view  of  Professor  Huxley.  And  from 
Darwin's  own  standpoint  it  seems  to  me 
the  conception  of  design  in  the  organic 
world  should  not  have  been  thrown  over 
until  he  had  found  an  answer  to  that  co- 
nundrum which  on  November  25,  1859,  he 
somewhat  profanely   propounded   to    Mr. 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  205 

Huxley.  "You  have,"  he  says,  "most 
cleverly  hit  on  one  point  which  has  greatly 
troubled  me ;  if,  as  I  must  think,  external 
conditions  produce  little  direct  effect,  what 
the  devil  determines  each  particular  varia- 
tion? What  makes  a  tuft  of  feathers 
come  on  a  cock's  head,  or  moss  on  a  moss- 
rose  ?  "  Until  that  query  is  answered,  the 
proof  that  the  eye  has  "  come  "  by  way  of 
natural  selection  instead  of  having  been 
"  specially  made,"  is  no  proof  that  its  com- 
ing was  unintentional.  And  when  the 
query  is  answered,  it  will  be  seen  that 
though  we  have  in  the  eye  a  result  which 
is  brought  about  only  in  accordance  with 
the  inexorable  laws  of  causation,  it  is  a  re- 
sult that  cannot  be  exhaustively  explained 
on  a  merely  mechanical  or  blind  necessita- 
rian theory  of  the  universe. 

Development  does  not  negate  design ;  it 
rather  affirms  it.  When  we  say  that  any- 
thing develops,  we  mean  that  it  undergoes 
changes  which  occur  in  a  determinate  man- 
ner and  lead  towards  a  definite  end.  Of 
this  law  of  its  development  the  organism 
is  itself  not  aware.  Nor  can  it  have  re- 
ceived the  law  from  other  individual  be- 
ings, which  are  all  in  the  same  position. 


206  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

To  understand  evolution,  therefore,  we 
must,  as  in  the  similar  case  of  causation, 
trace  it  back  to  the  real  ground  of  the  uni- 
verse itself.  And  as  causation  proved  to 
be  immanent  changes,  self-determined  and 
compensatory,  in  the  life  of  the  one  abso- 
lute spirit,  so  in  a  last  analysis  evolution 
signifies  besides  such  causation  the  self- 
posited  order  of  divine  ideas  in  accordance 
with  which  these  changes  actually  occur. 
In  their  relation  to  his  will  these  ideas  of 
the  Infinite  Spirit  must  be  regarded  as  ends. 
Man  sees  the  causal  mechanism  by  which 
they  are  realized,  but  to  discern  the  ideas 
themselves  is  generally  beyond  his  power. 
In  the  organic  world  he  catches  glimpses 
of  them.  And  in  the  life  of  the  human 
spirit  they  confront  him  in  a  self-con- 
scious miniature. 

But  it  is  nature  that  brings  to  the  birth 
not  only  living  organisms,  but  also  self- 
conscious  minds.  Yet  they  seem  beyond 
the  trick  of  nature  as  we  have  ordinarily 
understood  her.      Should  some  Polixenes 

remind  us  that 

"  Even  that  art 
Which  you  say  adds  to  nature,  is  an  art 
That  nature  makes  "  — 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  207 

we  shall  not  quarrel  about  names.  But 
since  what  life  and  mind  add  to  the  world 
is  something  that  mere  blind  mechanism 
could  not  of  itself  have  produced,  we  are 
forced  to  see  in  nature  a  spiritual  ground 
which,  with  an  absolute  self-consciousness 
of  its  own,  may  yet  be  said  to  sleep  in  the 
stone,  dream  in  the  animal,  and  again  wake 
to  life  in  man.  The  universe  is  a  realized 
scheme  of  divine  ideas ;  but,  though  they 
emerge  to  sight  in  organisms,  we  should 
never  have  suspected  their  presence  but 
for  our  own  self-conscious  spirits,  which 
are  the  chiefest  product,  and  therefore  the 
best  interpretation,  of  the  ultimate  ground 
of  things.  Now  as  science  cannot  dispense 
with  mechanical  causes,  neither  can  our 
own  spirit,  which  originates  science,  allow 
us  to  regard  the  world  as  only  mechanical. 
Darwin  shows  that  if  the  idea  of  purpose 
be  retained,  we  must  not  allow  the  arrange- 
ments of  particular  things  to  be  made  by  a 
will  external  to  them,  since  they  can  all  be 
accounted  for  by  means  of  causal  actions 
and  reactions.  What  remains,  then,  is  to 
unite  with  causality  a  principle  of  immanent 
teleology.  And  this  uiuon,  as  it  does  not 
violate  any  of  the  postulates  or  facts  of 


208  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

science,  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  in- 
terpretation of  nature  a-s  the  actual  source 
of  life  and  self-conscious  intelligence.  That 
such  a  synthesis  of  causality  and  teleology 
has  already  been  made  by  many  philosoph- 
ical scientists,  there  seems  good  reason 
to  believe.  But  so  great  is  the  current 
prejudice  in  scientific  circles  against  spirit 
that,  though  reflection  will  convince  any 
one  that  spirit  is  the  only  possible  ground 
of  this  synthesis,  these  scientists  continue 
to  talk  in  materialistic  language  of  a  pri- 
mordial molecular  arrangement  as  the  ulti- 
mate principle  of  their  philosophy.  For 
our  own  part,  we  must  state  explicitly  our 
belief  in  the  existence  of  one  absolute 
spirit,  of  which  all  finite  beings  are  the 
members  or  functions.  And  as  the  reality 
of  finite  things  is  but  a  mode  of  divine 
activity,  so  their  development  according  to 
law  and  purpose  is  but  the  conformity  of 
the  divine  will  to  ideas  of  the  divine  rea- 
son. In  a  last  analysis  cosmic  force  and 
intentionality  alike  converge  in  God. 

It  was  precisely  such  a  metaphysic  that 
Darwin  needed  for  escape  from  the  haunt- 
ing doubt  of  the  reality  of  design  in  nature. 
"  If  I  could  be  convinced  thoroughly,"  he 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  209 

said,  in  words  already  quoted,  "  that  life 
and  mind  was  in  an  unknown  way  a  func- 
tion of  other  imponderable  force,  I  should 
be  convinced."  The  real  ground  of  doubt, 
you  see,  lies  in  the  implied  assumption  that 
life  and  mind  are  the  mere  fortuitous  prod- 
ucts of  a  blind  arrangement  of  material 
elements.  But  from  such  an  unconscious 
materialism  philosophical  reflection  is  able 
to  deliver  us.  And  a  sound  metaphysic 
will  show  the  very  thing  that  Darwin  de- 
siderated, namely,  that  life  and  mind,  and 
not  only  life  and  mind,  but  matter  too,  are 
functions  of  other  imponderable  force,  of 
an  absolute  spiritual  life  in  which  all 
things  have  the  root  of  their  reality. 

But  while  the  teleological  path  may  be 
thus  made  plain  for  those  whose  philoso- 
phy has  already  assured  them  of  the  exists 
ence  of  God,  it  is  quite  another  question 
whether  in  itself  it  would  conduct  the 
doubt-driven  wanderer  to  that  primal 
ground  of  reality  and  truth.  The  difficulty 
is  in  establishing  empirically  the  universal 
presence  of  design.  How  few  are  the 
cases  in  which  we  can  find  an  intrinsic 
end  and  a  combination  of  appropriate 
means  for  its  realization  !    And  even  when 


210  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

we  seem  to  succeed,  as  for  example  in  the 
development  of  plants,  how  seldom  are  the 
ends  realized  anything  of  absolute  worth  ! 
The  entire  existence  of  plants  is  to  them- 
selves a  matter  of  indifference,  constructed 
though  they  obviously  are  with  reference 
to  the  continuation  of  their  kind.  They 
subserve,  it  is  true,  the  extrinsic  end  of 
maintaining  sentient  life,  since,  whatever 
be  the  intermediary  chemical  processes,  all 
animal  tribes  ultimately  depend  for  food 
upon  vegetation.  But  that  only  provokes 
the  further  question,  What,  then,  is  the 
absolute  value  of  animal  existence  ?  Man 
is  the  paragon  of  animals.  And  in  man  we 
feel  there  is  something  of  absolute  worth. 
But  can  we  make  this  quintessence  of  dust 
the  ultimate  end  of  all  existence  ?  Does 
not  anthropocentric  teleology  miss  that 
true  cosmic  perspective  which  comes  of 
remembering  that  the  chief  end  of  man,  as 
of  all  finite  tilings,  is  to  glorify  God  ? 

But  it  is  not  merely  that  the  ends  we 
discern  are  few  and  comparatively  unim- 
portant. It  is  not  merely  that  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases  there  seems  to  be  a  fail- 
ure of  ends.  Worse  than  all,  our  picked 
instances  of  intentionality  are  largely  neu- 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  211 

tralized  by  nature's  crop  of  misadjustment, 
uselessness,  mischief,  and  disease.  I  do 
not  mean  that  if  we  were  quite  certain  of 
purposive  activity  in  the  favorable  cases, 
we  should  yield  that  certainty  when  sur- 
rounded by  so  many  exceptions  of  a  con- 
trary sort.  But  I  mean  that  one  who 
looked  impartially  at  nature,  on  the  fair 
side  and  on  the  foul,  might  on  the  whole 
doubt  whether  a  principle  of  irrationality 
or  blind  chance  might  not  as  easily  have 
produced  certain  semblances  of  design  as 
an  infinite  reason  and  goodness  that  wealth 
of  opposite  instances. 

This  disaffection  towards  Nature  is  the 
inevitable  result  of  endeavoring  to  read 
in  her  modes  of  behavior  the  impenetrable 
secrets  of  divine  purpose  We  know  from 
our  analysis  of  reality  that  there  must  be 
an  infinite  spirit,  with  self-consciousness 
and  will.  We  know,  therefore,  there  must 
be  purpose  and  intention  in  the  world, 
though  it  is  scarcely  given  to  us  to  dis- 
cover it  by  observation.  Yet  though  veri- 
fying vision  fails,  this  is  only  what  might 
have  been  expected  from  the  nature  of  the 
case.  And  on  no  account,  if  we  are  to 
interpret   the   universe   by  a  single  prin- 


212  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

ciple,  as  science,  philosophy,  and  theology 
alike  demand,  can  we  forego  our  hypothe- 
sis of  anthropocosmic  theism. 

But  of  this  belief  in  God  the  argument 
from  design,  strictly  estimated,  could  never 
supply  the  evidence.  Its  kernel  of  truth 
lies  in  the  perception  that  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  material  is  to  be  sought  for  in 
the  living  and  the  conscious,  and  that  life 
and  consciousness,  though  realizing  them- 
selves through  mechanism,  could  not  have 
been  produced  by  it,  and  must  indeed  be 
considered  functions  of  one  all-embracing 
spirit.  But  vrhen  this  truth  assumes  the 
form  of  a  demonstration  of  the  divine  ex- 
istence from  the  presence  of  design  in  the 
processes  of  nature,  tAvo  defects  appear  in 
the  argument,  either  of  which  is  sufficient 
to  break  it.  First,  while  the  designed 
arrangements  found  in  the  world  neces- 
sarily imply  intelligence,  it  may  be  imma- 
nent in  the  organisms  that  exhibit  its 
marks,  or,  since  in  some  cases  that  cannot 
be  the  case,  it  may  be  found  in  a  plurality 
of  external  creators.  And  this  last  as- 
sumption really  accords  well  with  the  facts 
of  the  case.  For,  in  the  second  place,  the 
universality  of  design  cannot,  as  we  have 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  213 

seen,  be  established  by  empirical  observa- 
tion. And  the  things  that  are  designed 
may  be  set  over  against  the  things  that  are 
undesigned,  and  each  sphere  assigned,  as 
in  the  Persian  mythology,  to  one  of  two 
opposite  creative  principles.  That  this 
logically  valid  procedure  is  not  generally 
thought  of  is  due  to  the  fact  that  those 
who  use  the  argument  from  design  are 
already  convinced  of  the  existence  of  God. 
They  unconsciously  shut  their  eyes  to  the 
instances  of  misadjustment  and  purpose- 
lessness.  As  in  the  temples  were  hung 
the  votive  offerings  of  those  only  who  had 
escaped  drowning,  so  in  the  argument  from 
design  it  is  rare  to  find  any  display  of  con- 
trary facts.  It  is,  as  Bacon  observed,  the 
vice  of  the  human  mind  to  neglect  nega- 
tive instances.  And  that  the  argument 
from  design  fails  at  least  to  give  them  their 
due  weight,  we  may  realize  if  we  put  our- 
selves in  the  position  of  the  sceptic,  and 
inquire  how  we  could  overcome  to  his 
satisfaction  the  objections  I  have  just 
urged  against  the  conclusiveness  of  the 
teleological  proof  for  the  existence  of  God, 
as  that  proof  is  ordinarily  understood. 
Yet  the  fact  remains  that  thought  cannot 


214  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

surrender  the  teleological  view  of  the  world. 
That  existence  has  a  meaning  and  a  pur- 
pose is  as  certain  to  us  as  that  existence  is. 
Now,  the  supreme  end  of  all  things  must  be 
what  theologians  call  the  glory  of  God  — 
the  one  absolute  reality.  But  God  glorifies 
himself  in  communicating  himself.  Hence 
we  may  say,  with  Plato  and  with  Jonathan 
Edwards,  the  one  last  end  of  all  things  is 
that  the  infinite  good  might  be  communica- 
ted. But  the  Universal  Spirit  can  reveal 
himself  only  in  and  through  individual  spir- 
its, who  have  the  power  to  know  him  and 
the  capacity  to  enjoy  him.  And  since  we 
know  of  no  other  finite  spirit  than  man,  we 
may  venture  the  inference,  bold  though  it 
is,  that  man  is  indispensable  for  the  attain- 
ment of  God's  glory.  Thus  man  becomes 
implicated  with  the  final  cause  of  all  crea- 
tion. And  here  we  have  an  answer  to  the 
question  concerning  anthropocentric  teleol- 
ogy raised  a  few  pages  back.  In  its  vulgar 
form  that  doctrine  has  been  dislocated  by 
the  sciences,  especially  the  heliocentric  as- 
tronomy. But  in  its  deepest  thought,  it  has 
been  reinstated  by  that  theory  of  evolution 
which  forms  the  culminating  point  of  mod- 
ern science.     If  man  is  no  longer  the  spatial 


AS  REALIZING  PURPOSE.  215 

centre  of  a  universe  that  dances  attendance 
upon  him,  he  is  the  latest  offspring  of  time 
in  a  universe  that  for  vast  geologic  ages 
has  groaned  and  travailed  together  with 
his  birth.  As  Aristotle  rightly  saw,  the 
end  of  nature  is  the  production  of  man. 
All  things  are  his.  And  unless  the  evolu- 
tionist's analogy  between  the  course  of  the 
world  and  the  growth  of  an  organism  is 
misleading,  all  things,  in  a  certain  sense, 
are  for  his  sake.  We  cannot  for  a  moment 
believe  that  man  is  merely  an  incident  in 
a  blind  rush  of  mechanical  changes.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  do  not,  even  in  the  case 
of  man,  expect  to  find  the  realization  of  a 
final  purpose  without  causal  connections. 
But  it  is  certainly  a  very  suggestive  fact, 
as  Darwin,  but  especially  Wallace,  has 
pointed  out,  that  natural  selection,  which 
is  the  moving  power' of  the  organic  world, 
and  which  was  an  active  agent  in  the  pro- 
duction of  our  species,  ceases  to  operate  in 
man,  whose  development  goes  on  by  means 
of  self-conscious  deliberation,  choice,  and 
effort.  ]\Ian  is  to  throw  off  his  brutish 
heritage,  and  press  on  towards  perfect  life 
by  his  own  free  agency.  And  the  goal  of 
his  endeavor  is  the  actualization  of  those 


216  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

spiritual  potencies  with  which  he  feels  him- 
self charged.  In  the  words  of  Pythagoras, 
man's  aim  is  to  be  like  God.  In  this  God- 
likeness  there  is  a  communion  with  God, 
which  is  man's  response  to  the  ultimate 
end  of  all  creation,  —  the  communication 
of  the  goodness  of  God. 

Here,  tlien,  along  with  the  general  doc- 
trine of  purpose,  we  have  a  specifically  an- 
thropic  teleology.  God  has  crowned  man 
with  glory  and  honor.  Whether  we  vis- 
ualize his  regal  position  as  the  centre  of 
cosmic  space  or  the  climax  of  cosmic  time, 
the  fact  remains  that  the  human  spirit  is 
the  organ  of  that  communication  of  God 
which  is  the  end  of  the  universe. 

The  nature  of  the  communion  between 
the  Infinite  and  the  finite  spirit  must  be 
reserved  for  the  following  lecture. 


LECTURE  VI. 

BELIEF    IN    GOD  AS   FATHER    OF    SPIRITS. 

So  far  the  hypothesis  of  the  existence 
of  one  infinite  spirit  has  presented  itself 
as  a  philosophical  principle  for  the  expla- 
nation of  the  universe  as  a  whole.  We  were 
led  to  it,  you  will  remember,  by  an  analy- 
sis of  the  fact  of  becoming  or  change.  Or, 
more  particularly,  we  found  it  impossible 
to  understand  how  things  should  act  upon 
one  another,  if,  as  is  ordinarily  supposed, 
they  are  in  reality  independent  of  one 
another.  The  fact  of  reciprocal  action  of 
things  being  given,  however,  there  was  no 
alternative  but  to  regard  things  as  func- 
tions of  one  all-inclusive  reality  which, 
while  remaining  identical  with  itself,  yet 
underwent  immanent  changes  in  its  states. 
And  this  postulate  our  own  self-conscious 
experience  enabled  us  to  satisfy  in  deter- 
mining the  ground  of  all  existence  as 
spiritual.     Ultimate  reality,  we  said,  must 

217 


218  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

know  itself  as  one  amid  the  multiplicity 
of  its  states.  And  as  the  source  of  changes 
in  itself,  this  reality,  we  did  not  hesitate 
to  declare,  must  be  volitional  as  well  as 
self-conscious.  The  infinite  spirit  is  no 
mere  sabbatic  observer  of  changes  that 
occur  in  the  universe ;  it  is  itself  the  pro- 
ductive ground  of  them,  and  they  are  its 
states  and  apart  from  it  have  no  existence. 
In  the  externalization  of  this  spirit  through 
what  we  call  the  material  world,  there 
must  of  course  be  marks  of  purpose.  But 
it  is  so  seldom  human  vision  can  discern 
them  that  were  we  confined  to  the  empiri- 
cal argument  from  design,  there  would  be 
some  excuse,  at  least  in  mutinous  and  atra- 
bilious moods,  for  treating  it  as  a  disproof 
rather  than  a  proof  of  the  existence  of 
God.  Yet  it  by  no  means  follows,  as  so 
many  thinkers  have  hastily  concluded,  that 
modern  science  and  Darwinism  in  partic- 
ular oblige  us  to  conceive  the  universe  in 
its  entirety  and  in  all  its  details  as  the 
product  of  a  blindly  working  mechanical 
necessity.  For  in  that  universe  we  find 
life  and  mind.  And  though  science  should 
ultimately  succeed  in  reducing  them  to 
their  material  conditions,  —  a  prospect  that 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  219 

is  to-day  only  a  dim  expectancy,  —  their 
peculiar  content  and  significance  would 
not  thereby  be  accounted  for,  and  we  should 
simply  be  constrained  to  re-interpret  in 
other  than  material  language  the  primor- 
dial elements  which  wore  capable  of  blos- 
soming and  ripening,  under  the  fixed  laws 
of  mechanism,  into  the  flower  and  fruit 
of  living  self-conscious  spirit.  Hence  that 
teleological  view  of  the  world  required  by 
the  results  of  our  previous  metaphysical 
analysis  cannot  be  disannulled  by  science, 
either  as  science  now  stands  or  might  ever 
conceivably  stand  in  the  future.  As  cos- 
mic principle,  therefore,  the  hypothesis  of 
an  infinite  self-conscious  and  volitional 
being  appears  to  stand  on  a  quite  solid 
basis. 

Even  this  belief  in  God  is  anthropic  as 
well  as  cosmic  in  its  character.  For  if  the 
universe  as  a  whole  supplies  the  facts  for 
the  explanation  of  which  this  hypothesis 
was  needed,  it  is  from  man  alone  we  bor- 
row the  content  of  the  hypothesis.  The 
self-conscious  essence  that  is  at  home  witli 
us  in  the  human  microcosm  we  see  to  be 
the  interpretative  principle  of  the  all-em- 
bracing macrocosm.     But  there  is  a  second 


220  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

sense  in  which  this  theism  deserves  to  be 
called  anthropic.  Over  and  above  the  cos- 
mic facts  on  which  we  have  based  the  exist- 
ence of  God  as  a  metaphysical  being  there 
are  specifically  human  facts  that  shape 
and  color  the  conception  thus  generically 
established.  God  is  not  merely  the  ground 
of  all  things.  Not  that  I  would  disparage 
for  a  moment  a  metaphysical  result  short 
of  which  the  comprehending  intellect  of 
man  can  never  rest  satisfied.  But  as  the 
chief  end  of  man  is  not  knowledge,  or,  to 
express  it  more  cautiously,  as  man  is  more 
than  a  knowing  intelligence,  so  his  interest 
in  God  must  go  much  farther  than  the 
conception  of  Him  as  an  ultimate  princi- 
ple for  the  interpretation  of  all  existence. 
For  our  understanding  of  the  universe, 
and  for  the  universe  itself  so  far  as  it  is 
not  spiritual,  no  other  determination  of  the 
divine  nature  is  necessary.  But  the  com- 
plex nature  of  man  forces  us  to  consider 
other  predicates  of  God.  For  man  has  a 
heart  and  a  soul  as  well  as  a  mind.  And 
a  conception  of  God  that  satisfies  merely 
the  intellect  may  crush  the  emotions  and 
aspirations,  paralyze  the  will,  and  tear 
from  conscience  all   that  is  precious,  en- 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  221 

nobling,  and  supremely  worthful  in  the 
life  of  humanity.  That  such  ruthless  in- 
tellectual tyramiy  is  now  the  fashion  in 
circles  of  higher  thought  I  would  neither 
conceal  from  myself  nor  from  you.  But 
the  suggestion  may  be  ventured  that  after 
all  what  is  true  in  these  matters  must  ap- 
prove itself  true  to  the  whole  man.  Only 
the  intellect,  it  is  true,  can  trace  the  modes 
of  procedure  of  reality,  as  science  records 
them.  But  in  determining  the  nature  of 
reality  itself,  the  whole  being  of  man, 
which  is  the  only  part  of  reality  we  know 
immediately  from  the  inside  must  be 
allowed  to  appear  as  witness.  Whoever 
treats  himself  as  the  evanescent  and  worth- 
less product  of  blind  mechanical  motions 
and  percussions  may  of  course  reach  a 
more  or  less  consistent  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse, but  he  has  purchased  it  in  violation 
of  all  the  dearest  rights  and  claims  of 
personality.  The  question  really  is  whether 
for  the  sake  of  completely  realizing  the 
scientific  ideal  of  explaining  everything  by 
determinable  mechanical  processes,  the  self 
in  whom  and  for  whom  and  through  whom 
all  this  scientific  knowledge  exists  should 
itself  be  brought  down  to  the  level  of  the 


222  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

categories  through  which  it  explains  the 
world  of  objects ;  so  that  whatever  spirit- 
ual content  resisted  such  reduction  should 
be  declared  illusory  surplusage  even  though 
it  included  the  beautiful  and  the  good,  the 
belief  in  freedom,  and  the  hope  of  im- 
mortality. It  is  from  its  notion  of  the 
self,  the  inevitable  centre  of  everybody's 
world,  that  every  system  of  philosophy 
takes  its  origin  and  tone.  And  the  mechan- 
ical philosophy  will  always  be  found  irre- 
fragable by  the  man  who,  as  Schelling 
somewhere  says,  is  himself  able  to  realize 
it  in  practice;  that  is,  who  does  not  find 
unendurable  the  thought  of  working  away 
at  his  own  annihilation,  surrendering  the 
freedom  of  the  will,  and  being  merely  the 
modification  of  a  blind  object  in  whose  in- 
finitude he  finds  sooner  or  later  his  own 
ethical  destruction.  Of  course  appeals  to 
sentiment  and  prejudice  would  here  be  out 
of  place.  But  the  soberest  reflection,  I 
may  be  permitted  to  say,  makes  it  impos- 
sible for  me  to  accept  this  view  of  person- 
ality. Nor  can  I  see  any  ground  for  it 
except  an  unreasoning  prejudice  in  favor, 
exclusively,  of  the  methods  of  objective 
science   and  a   resolute   determination   to 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  223 

carry  them  into  the  life  of  spirit  (itself 
the  author  of  all  science)  even  though  the 
first  condition  of  success  be  the  denial  of 
everything  that  is  essentially  characteristic 
of  spirit.  Much  as  I  admire  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  scientific  intellect,  it  is 

"  Not  for  these  I  raise 

The  song  of  thanks  and  praise ; 
But  for  those  obstinate  questionings 
Of  sense  and  outward  things, 
Fallings  from  us,  vanishings ; 
Blank  misgivings  of  a  Creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realised, 
High  instincts,  before  which  our  mortal  Nature 
Did  tremble  like  a  guilty  Thing  surprised : 
But  for  those  first  affections, 
Those  shadowy  recollections, 
Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day, 
Are  yet  a  master  light  of  all  our  seeing ; 

Uphold  us,  cherish,  and  have  power  to  make 
Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the  being 
Of  the  eternal  Silence  :  truths  that  wake, 

To  perish  never ; 
Which  neither  listlessness,  nor  mad  endeavor, 

Nor  Man  nor  Boy, 
Nor  all  that  is  at  enmity  with  joy, 
Can  utterly  abolish  or  destroy ! " 

Now,  if  this  priceless  heritage  of  person- 
ality, these  pure  affections,  high  instincts, 
supersensuous    cravings,   and    deep-seeing 


224  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

intuitions,  are  to  be  kept  inviolate,  as  tliey 
must  be  if  we  believe  tbem  to  have  an 
absolute  worth,  adequate  provision  must 
be  made  for  them  in  any  philosophy  that 
is  to  approve  itself  true  to  the  entire  nature 
of  man.  Reality  is  vastly  richer  than  human 
thought  can  compass.  And  speculation  that 
escapes  superficiality  is  almost  certain  to 
fall  into  the  opposite  vice  of  one-sidedness. 
There  are  more  things,  if  not  in  the  heavens 
and  on  the  earth,  assuredly  in  the  self-con- 
scious life  of  man,  than  are  dreamt  of  in 
the  mechanical  philosophy;  and  if  it  is 
awakened  to  their  presence,  it  can  only 
explain  them  as  illusions  that  accompany 
the  functioning  of  those  natural  forces 
which  it  regards  as  sole  reality.  Person- 
ality is  the  rock  on  which  such  naturalistic 
theories  always  suffer  shipwreck.  We  can- 
not believe  ourselves  to  be  the  incidental 
and  evanescent  appearances  they  would 
make  us.  And  for  this  reason,  too,  pan- 
theism is  an  unsatisfactory  philosophy. 
However  superior  to  the  mechanical  the- 
ory in  its  conception  of  ultimate  reality,  in 
determining  the  relation  of  God  to  finite 
beings,  it  leaves  no  room  for  human  per- 
sonality.    On  this  crucial  point  we  must 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIBITS.  225 

examine   also   how   the   case   stands  with 
anthropocosmic  theism. 

We  have  held  that  the  one  eternal  and 
ultimate  reality  is  the  absolute  life  of  God. 
As  self-conscious  and  volitional,  we  desig- 
nate it  spiritual  life.  Now,  it  is  the  nature 
of  spirit  to  manifest  itself.  The  material 
world,  accordingly,  we  regard  as  the  expres- 
sion of  the  divine  will.  It  is  not,  as  the 
deist  supposed,  an  instituted  system  of  once 
created,  though  now  self-subsisting  reali- 
ties, which  might,  as  it  were,  go  on  to 
exist,  though  God  should  cease  to  be.  It 
is  the  continuous  efflux  of  the  divine  en- 
ergy, and  apart  from  God  has  absolutely 
no  existence.  Material  things  exist  simply 
as  modes  of  the  divine  activity ;  they  have 
no  existence  for  themselves.  Spiritual 
things,  on  the  other  hand,  exist  at  once  in 
God  and  for  themselves.  They  are  in  God ; 
for  as  God  is  the  underlying  ground  of  all 
things,  so  philosophy  must  confess  with 
Scripture  that  in  him  we  too  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being.  But  the  characteristic 
of  spiritual  beings  is,  that,  like  their  divine 
source,  they  are  also  for  themselves.  That 
is  to  say,  they  know  themselves  as  one 
amid  a  multiplicity  of   states  which  they 


226  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

recognize  as  their  own,  and  they  know 
themselves  as  freely  initiating  action  on  a 
scene  where  all  other  actions  are  the  de- 
termined issues  of  antecedent  conditions. 
How  beings  can  be  self-contained  .  persons 
and  at  the  same  time  elements  of  the  divine 
life,  we  can  never  perhaps  precisely  under- 
stand ;  but  the  planets  of  the  solar  system 
and  the  cells  in  the  living  organism  may 
serve  as  rude  analogies  for  the  visualizing 
imagination.  At  any  rate,  there  is  no  es- 
cape from  the  difficulty  unless  we  deny  one 
side  of  the  contrast.  But  the  immanence 
of  all  that  exists  in  God  is  a  result  of 
philosophical  analysis  that  can  lead  to  no 
other  conclusion.  And  the  fact  of  our  own 
personality  is  an  inexpugnable  deliverance 
of  consciousness. 

But  these  positions,  be  it  observed,  are 
not  mutually  contradictory.  And,  in  fact, 
the  main  barriers  to  their  union  come  al- 
together from  the  hard  and  fast  delimita- 
tions of  the  popular  understanding.  If  all 
things  are  in  God,  it  is  assumed  that  all 
things  alike  are  without  independence.  Of 
course  this  is  true  to  the  extent  that  no 
finite  things  have  originated  their  own 
existence,  a  point  on  which  all  are  happily 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  227 

agreed.  But  it  is  false  if  it  means  that 
spiritual  and  material  beings,  because  all 
included  in  the  one  absolute  life,  are  all 
on  the  same  plane  of  reality  or  unreality. 
The  one  kind  has  risen  to  a  consciousness 
of  self  and  of  freedom ;  the  other  has  not. 
And  whether  they  be  in  or  out  of  the  divine 
being,  the  difference  between  self  and  self- 
less stuff  is  the  greatest  we  know  or  can 
imagine.  Nor  is  there  any  reason  why 
God  should  not  manifest  himself  in  and 
through  degrees  of  reality,  varying  from 
zero  to  infinity. 

So  much  truth,  at  leasts  it  seems  to  me 
to  lie  in  the  Hegelian  contention  that  iden- 
tity and  difference  are  both  necessary  to 
the  being  of  the  infinite  spirit.  But  the 
difference  above  spoken  of  was  rather  a 
difference  in  the  modes  of  its  activity  than 
a  difference  between  those  and  the  spirit 
itself.  Hegel,  however,  does  not  oppose 
man  and  God.  And  for  my  own  part,  I  am 
unable  to  see  how  we  can  believe  in  God 
without  at  the  same  time  regarding  the 
finite  spirit,  so  far  as  its  essential  ground 
is  concerned,  as  identical,  within  the  limits 
of  its  range,  with  the  infinite  spirit.  It  is 
so  because  it  is  an  ego.     Whatever  is  not 


228  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

an  ego  stands  on  a  lower  plane ;  though  ego 
and  non-ego  are  both  alike  included  in  the 
divine  life.  But  in  the  case  of  the  ego.,  we 
have  not  merely  a  mode  of  the  divine  ac- 
tivity ;  we  have,  as  it  were,  a  part  of  the 
divine  essence.  So  that  man's  greater  in- 
dependence is  in  fact  the  result  of  man's 
greater  dependence  upon  God.  God's  love 
to  man  is  already  metaphysically  prefigured 
in  the  gift  of  himself  for  the  creation  of 
man.  Or,  if  we  choose  to  express  this 
spiritual  relationship  in  the  utterly  inade- 
quate language  of  causality,  we  may  say 
that  while  the  infinite  spirit  is  the  first 
cause,  finite  spirits  are  the  only  second 
causes,  —  causes  because  they  have  the 
power  of  initiating  action;  second  causes 
because  they  derive  it  from  the  first  cause, 
in  relation  to  whom  they  are  effects.  The 
constituents  of  man's  personality  are  of 
God,  but  they  carry  in  their  make  and 
constitution  the  assurance  that  man  does 
through  their  operations  a  portion  of  work 
which  God  has  vacated  on  his  behalf.  As 
Dr.  Martineau  has  expressed  it:  Man  is 
included  in  Avhat  God  has  caused^  though 
excepted  from  what  he  is  causing  ;  so  that 
while  author  of  all  our  possibilities,  God 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  229 

is  not  responsible  for  our  actualities.  But 
Dr.  Martineau's  reference  to  time  is  some- 
what misleading ;  for  it  might  be  taken  to 
imply  that  God  had  set  up  finite  spirits 
and  then  left  them  to  themselves.  But  the 
fact  is,  that  God  is  ever  present  and  active 
in  us,  so  that  our  existence  would  collapse 
were  he  to  withdraw.*  But  the  things  he 
causes  are  yet  distinguishable  from  the 
things  we  cause,  and  that  though  in  a  last 
analysis  our  capacity  of  free  initiation  is 
also  referable  to  the  supreme  cause.  Man 
comes  from  God  and  is  in  God ;  but  what 
distinguishes  him  from  selfless  things  is 
that  he  exists  for  himself  and  acts  of  him- 
self. 

The  immanence  of  both  the  world  and 
man  in  God  is  not,  therefore,  inconsistent 
with  a  belief  in  the  insubstantiality  of  soul- 
less things  and  the  free  personality  of  the 
human  spirit.  But  though  our  conception 
of  God  does  not  negate  the  self,  it  has  not, 
so  far  as  yet  developed,  provided  for  any 
special  relation,  as,  for  example,  of  affec- 
tion or  communion  between  man  and  God. 
Derived  from  reflection  upon  the  universe, 
the  absolute  was  endowed  with  spirituality 
solely  because    nothing   else  was    able  to 


230  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

solve  the  cosmic  problem.  That  is  to  say, 
if  God  was  to  be  conceived  merely  as 
ground  of  all  things,  we  found  he  must 
have  the  attributes  of  self -consciousness, 
power,  and  self-existence.  Such  a  being  is 
all  that  is  needed  by  the  metaphysician  for 
the  explanation  of  reality  and  its  changes. 
Whether  God  is  more  than  a  self-conscious, 
active  world-soul  remains  undecided ;  and 
it  can  be  determined  only  on  the  basis  of 
certain  special  facts  of  which  neither  the 
metaphysician  nor  the  scientist  is  required 
to  take  account.  These  are  the  ideals  of 
the  human  heart.  Voicing  what  ought  to 
be,  they  present  a  striking  contrast  to  what 
is.  Yet  if  God  is  in  truth  the  ultimate 
ground  of  all  things,  there  must  be  in  his 
nature  a  principle  of  union  even  of  the 
ideal  and  the  real.  Yet  it  is  just  at  this 
point  that  scepticism,  and  honest  scepti- 
cism, too,  has  always  intervened  most  ef- 
fectively to  balk  the  aspirations  of  Chris- 
tian faith,  which  can  stop  at  no  conception 
of  God  short  of  that  of  Holy  Father.  Even 
David  Hume  acknowledged  the  force  of 
the  theistic  argument  till  it  reached  its 
concluding  demonstration  of  the  moral  na- 
ture of  God.     We  shall,  therefore,  find  it 


AS  FATHER   OF  SPIRITS.  231 

no  easy  task  to  establish  the  conviction 
that  in  the  everlasting  ground  of  things 
there  is  a  heart  of  goodness  that  answers 
to  the  supreme'  ideals  of  the  moral  con- 
sciousness of  mankind.  Yet  this  is  a  mat- 
ter of  the  most  vital  concern  to  every  one 
of  us.  For  if  God  be  not  Love,  the  Chris- 
tian faith  is  vain. 

Nevertheless  I  would  not  emphasize  this 
aspect  of  truth,  to  which  we  must  soon  re- 
turn, without  mentioning  another,  which  I 
am  sure  has  been  too  much  overlooked  by 
theological  thinkers.  God  has  many  attri- 
butes ;  and  though  goodness  is  the  one  that 
affects  most  deeply  the  human  heart,  crea- 
tive power  and  wisdom  are  just  as  real 
and  are  much  more  manifest  to  the  empiri- 
cal observer.  It  may,  therefore,  be  quite 
misleading  to  say,  as  is  often  done,  that  a 
God  without  moral  character  is  no  God  at 
all.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  first  gods,  as 
was  shown  in  an  earlier  lecture,  were  prob- 
ably non-moral  beings.  And  even  civilized 
peoples,  like  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  were 
wont  in  early  times  to  trust  in  the  gods, 
not  because  they  were  benevolent,  but  be- 
cause they  had  been  properly  propitiated. 
Of  this  sort  is  the  faith  of   the  modern 


232  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

scientist.  In  his  imagination  and  feelings 
he  cannot  realize  the  universe,  but  he  looks 
upon  it  with  awe  and  wonder  and  a  deep 
sense  of  mystery.  Now  this  attitude 
towards  the  universe  is  a  worthy  and  ad- 
mirable one,  and  much  more  reverential 
than  is  too  often  found  in  those  who  have 
learned  that  the  heart  of  things  is  also  in- 
finitely good  and  loving.  Though  moral 
ideals  may  be  the  highest,  we  strive 
not  only  after  goodness,  but  also  after 
truth,  beauty,  and  fulness  of  life.  And 
whosoever  finds  in  the  universe-  the  reali- 
zation of  any  one  of  his  ideals  will  bow 
down  and  worship  the  eternal  spirit  that 
thus  reveals  itself  to  his  soul.  It  matters 
not  that  we  all  see  the  Godhead  from  our 
own  point  of  view.  That  is  an  inevitable 
consequence  of  our  individuality.  And  it 
is  surely  no  disparagement  of  any  man's 
worship  that  it  is  awakened  and  exercised 
through  the  medium  of  that  soul  which 
God  has  given  him.  To  the  scientist  God 
is  the  principle  of  order,  to  the  artist  the 
soul  of  beauty,  to  the  man  of  virtue  the 
will  that  is  absolutely  holy.  In  the  Chris- 
tian church  the  anthropic  view  of  God  has 
always  predominated  over  the  cosmic ;  and 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  233 

this  has  led  to  an  undue  disparagement  of 
beauty  and  truth  as  compared  with  virtue. 
Art  and  science  have  been  treated  as  secu- 
lar, if  not  positively  irreligious.  Now 
modern  culture  protests  against  the  puri- 
tan enthronement  of  goodness  above  truth 
and  beauty.  It  regards  them  as  co-equal 
sister-graces,  divine  forms  that  haunt  the 
mind  of  man  and  stimulate  him  to  the  real- 
ization of  something  absolutely  worthful. 
For  the  decalogue  it  would  substitute  the 
wider  new  commandment  of  Goethe :  Live 
resolutely  in  the  Whole,  in  the  Good,  in 
the  Beautiful.  We  all  want  more  life,  and 
it  is  the  yearning  for  it  that  leads  us  to 
practical  religion ;  that  is,  to  communion 
with  God.  And  what  I  understand  Goethe 
to  mean  is  that  this  fulness  of  life  with 
God  is  best  attained  when  we  seek  it 
in  the  knowledge  of  the  universe,  in  the 
practice  of  moral  disciplines,  and  in  the 
admiration  of  every  thing  of  beauty.  This 
artistic  aspect  was  especially  conspicuous 
in  the  Greeks,  whose  religion  was,  as 
Hegel  calls  it,  a  religion  of  beauty.  Of 
the  remaining  branches  of  Goethe's  pre- 
cept, life  in  the  Whole  is  the  ideal  of  the 
scientist,  life  in  the  Good  of  the  ordinary 


234  BELIEF  IN-  GOJ. 

Christian.-  But  the  highest  religion  can 
be  content  with  nothing  short  of  the 
synthesis  demanded  by  Goethe.  And  I 
expect  it  to  emerge  from  the  mutual 
attraction  exercised  upon  each  other  by 
ecclesiastical  Christianity  and  secular  sci- 
ence. Religious  thinkers  will  drop  their 
exclusively  anthropic  idea  of  God.  They 
will  come  to  see  that  God  is  not  merely 
the  guarantee  of  those  human  hopes  about 
which  religion  has  in  the  past  too  exclu- 
sively turned,  but  also  the  sustaining 
ground  of  the  universe,  whose  order  is 
revealed  by  science.  And  scientific  think- 
ers have  already  developed  a  natural  the- 
ology, though  in  their  zeal  to  destroy  the 
old,  they  have  almost  lost  sight  of  their 
own  discovery.  Has  not  the  man  of  sci- 
ence an  object  of  worship  ?  He  calls  it 
Nature  rather  than  God ;  but  what's  in  a 
name?  It  is  an  object  that  inspires  awe, 
and  the  scientist's  most  frequent  complaint 
against  popular  Christianity  is  that  it  is 
too  familiar  with  that  Eternal  Being  be- 
fore whom  prophets  of  old  hid  their  faces 
in  the  dust.  Again,  Nature  inspires  con- 
fidence as  well  as  terror.  To  the  man  who 
obeys  her  laws  she  gives  peace  and  even 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  235 

Joy.  As  the  priests  of  old  knew  how  to 
win  the  favor  of  the  gods,  so  the  scientist 
understands  how  to  gain  the  co-operation 
of  Nature.  If,  in  its  revolt  against  tradi- 
tional Christianity,  modern  science  has 
been  forced  to  construct  de  novo  a  religion 
of  its  own,  what  it  has  attained  is  an  ob- 
ject of  worship  resembling  the  God  of  Si- 
nai, though  conceived  altogether  in  terms 
of  cosmic  science.  And  as  the  anthropic 
theism  of  ecclesiastical  Christianity  is  des- 
tined to  take  on  also  a  cosmic  character,  it 
seems  not  rash  to  predict  that  the  cosmic 
theism  of  secular  science  will  complete 
itself  by  taking  account  of  human  ideals, 
and  so  go  on  to  add  to  the  awe  of  Judaism 
the  loving  confidence  of  Christianity.  In 
that  event,  the  two  theological  tendencies 
of  the  day,  the  positive  and  negative  (as 
generally  regarded),  would  meet  and  coal- 
esce in  anthropocosmic  theism.  And  as 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  would  have 
any  quarrel  with  art,  but  rather  both  de- 
mand it  as  a  complementary  grace,  perfect 
religion  would  coincide  with  Goethe's  ideal 
of  perfect  culture  :  Life  in  the  Whole,  the 
Good,  and  the  Beautiful. 

But  this   prospect   is  not   yet  realized. 


236  BELIEF  IN  GOD, 

And  though  the  drift  of  thought  tends 
thitherward,  it  is  obstructed,  perhaps  defin- 
itively, by  the  scientist's  inability  to  believe 
that  the  universe  at  heart  is  moral,  or  con- 
cerns itself  in  any  way  with  the  ideals  of 
man.  The  relation  of  the  universe  to  hu- 
man ideals  is  the  question  of  questions  for 
Christian  theology.  In  a  recent  book  en- 
titled Das  Wesen  der  Religion^  which  has 
gone  through  several  editions  in  Germany, 
but  seems  to  be  unknown  in  this  country, 
Dr.  Bender,  of  Bonn  University,  has  very 
ingeniously  attempted  to  show  that  all  re- 
ligions, alike  in  their  practical  and  their 
theoretical  aspects,  in  their  rituals  and  dog- 
mas, as  well  as  in  their  revelations,  take 
their  origin  and  content  from  an  effort  to 
protect  and  realize  the  ends  and  ideals  of 
life,  be  these  ideals  sensuous  or  spiritual, 
individual  or  universal,  naturalistic,  ies- 
thetic,  or  moral.  According  to  Dr.  Bender, 
the  interests  and  aims  of  religion  are  the 
same  as  those  of  culture,  though  the  mode 
of  attaining  them  is  different.  In  the  one 
case,  man  is  sufficient  to  himself;  in  the 
other,  not.  But  in  both  cases  the  impulse 
is  the  same,  —  the  instinct  that  moves  us 
to  preserve,  enrich,  perfect,  and   beautify 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  237 

our  own  lives.  Belief  in  God  is  merely 
an  act  of  self-preservation  in  favor  of  our 
ideals.  The  central  question  of  religion  is 
not  God,  but  man.  The  idea  of  God  does 
not  explain  anything ;  it  simply  calms  our 
fears  when  our  ideals  seem  unrealizable  in 
the  world.  Prayer  is  the  means  by  which 
man  in  the  struggle  for  existence  calls  to 
his  aid  higher  powers,  in  order  to  maintain 
his  aims  when  his  own  power  is  insufficient. 
Thus  the  organizing  principle  of  all  relig- 
ions is  the  conception  of  an  end  or  ideal 
of  life  and  the  belief  in  its  realizability. 
From  this  source  come  all  the  supernatural 
beings  of  religion,  the  highest,  of  course, 
included.  And  the  nature  of  these  beings 
is  also  determined  by  the  character  of  the 
ideals,  in  whose  interest  they  have  been 
originated. 

This  is  an  anthropic  theology  with  a  ven- 
geance. The  only  proof  of  the  existence 
of  God  is  that  man  needs  his  help  when 
the  world  bears  hard  on  human  ideals ! 
Of  course,  this  is  not  Dr.  Bender's  own 
theistic  argument.  He  comes  before  us, 
not  as  a  metaphysician,  but  as  a  psycholo- 
gist whose  aim  is  to  trace  the  motives  and 
processes  that  have  led  men  everywhere  to 


238  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

a  conception  and  worship  of  the  Godhead. 
That  mankind  has  been  under  a  great  illu- 
sion both  as  regards  the  datum  from  which 
and  the  transcendent  object  to  which  the 
inference  has  been  made,  appears  to  be  Dr. 
Bender's  own  personal  view.  And  we  have 
already  seen  that  there  is  no  purely  an- 
thropic  tenable  argument  for  the  existence 
of  God.  Where  we  take  issue  with  Dr. 
Bender  is  in  maintaining  that  there  is  a 
cosmic  basis  for  our  belief  in  God.  And 
though  religious  thinking  often  ignores  it, 
as  our  historical  sketch  made  clear  enough, 
it  also  at  times  gives  it  the  fullest  promi- 
nence. I  question,  therefore,  the  correct- 
ness of  Dr.  Bender's  analyses,  ingenious 
and  fresh  as  they  generally  are.  His  book 
is  another  of  the  many  brilliant  volumes 
which  have  been  written  to  explain  how 
belief  in  God,  considered  as  devoid  of  objec- 
tive foundation  actually  came  into  exist- 
ence. And  though  it  might  attract  us  by 
its  exhaustive  treatment  of  human  ideals, 
we  must  leave  it  with  the  remark  that  it 
never  raises  the  question  which  for  us  is 
all-important;  namely,  whether,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  universal  reality  concerns  itself 
about  human  ideals. 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIEITS.  239 

Students  of  German  philosophy  will  rec- 
ognize in  Dr.  Bender's  account  of  the  psy- 
chological process  of  religion  a  universal 
application  of  Kant's  moral  argument  for 
the  existence  of  God.  Certainly  Kant's 
moral  argument  has  more  to  recommend  it 
than  the  illusory  inferences  which,  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Bender,  mankind  have  made  for 
the  preservation  of  their  interests  and  ends. 
For  Kant,  at  any  rate,  believed  in  the  abso- 
lute worth  of  the  moral  ideal.  The  mis- 
fortune, however,  is  that,  instead  of  con- 
necting with  that  doctrine  the  existence  of 
God,  he  took  the  roundabout  and  dubious 
course  of  connecting  it  with  the  propor- 
tioning of  happiness  to  virtue,  which  he  de- 
clared a  requirement  of  the  practical  reason. 
But  Kant's  whole  ethical  system  is  in  irrec- 
oncilable opposition  to  this  eudsemonism. 
And  what  is  still  more  fatal,  introspection 
and  reflection  fail  to  convince  us  of  the 
necessary  connection  between  goodness  and 
happiness.  Yet  unless  virtue  and  rewards 
are  to  be  adjusted,  Kant  has  no  function 
for  the  deity,  and  no  other  proof  of  liis 
existence. 

The  fact  will  have  to  be  recognized 
sooner  or  later  that  there  is  no  anthropic 


240  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  The  moral 
ideal  of  man  may  throw  some  light  upon 
the  moral  character  of  God,  but  it  is  power- 
less to  prove  the  divine  existence.  More 
than  this  I  cannot  concede  to  Dr.  Martineau, 
who  maintains  that  conscience  reveals  to 
us  God  with  the  same  directness  and  cer- 
tainty as  sense-perception  reveals  an  exter- 
nal world.  The  true  state  of  the  case 
seems  rather  to  be  that,  though  conscience 
does  not  prove  the  existence  of  one  infinite 
spirit,  it  yet  obliges  us  to  invest  it,  if 
existent,  with  the  predicate  of  righteous- 
ness. If  there  be  a  God,  moral  laws  seem 
best  explained  as  expressions  of  his  nature. 
It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  think 
that  the  everlasting  ground  of  things  should 
be  indifferent  to  those  virtues  and  graces 
of  character  that  constitute  for  us  the 
chief  end  of  man. 

Against  this  Avay  of  thinking  Kant  raised 
and  emphasized  the  objection  that  moral 
law  cannot  be  given  to  us  from  without. 
It  must  be  imposed  upon  us  by  ourselves, 
since  only  such  autonomous  legislation  is 
consistent  with  moral  self-determination. 
This  objection  may  be  allowed  as  against 
the  popular  view  that  treats  conscience  as 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIHITS,  241 

a  supernatural  and  unique  endowment  of 
the  human  spirit,  a  foreign  addition  to  its 
own  proper  make-up.  If  a  human  being 
could  exist  without  a  consciousness  of 
right  and  wrong  and  a  sense  of  the 
authority  of  the  one  over  the  other,  its 
free  life  would,  as  Kant  insisted,  be  turned 
into  bondage  by  obedience  to  a  moral  law- 
imposed  by  some  external  lawgiver.  But 
such  an  hypothesis  does  not  answer  to  the 
nature  of  man.  Man  has  a  moral  constitu- 
tion, and,  as  Kant  rightly  saw,  he  imposes 
upon  himself  a  law  of  unconditional  obli- 
gation. Our  problem  begins  where  Kant's 
ends.  How  can  we  explain  man's  recog- 
nition of  moral  law  apart  from  an  innate 
endowment  which  is  as  distinctively  char- 
acteristic of  the  human  spirit  as  intelligence 
or  will,  and  which,  like  these,  must  have 
its  ground  in  the  one  infinite  Spirit?  It 
is  not  denied  that  the  moral  consciousness 
has  its  history,  just  like  the  intellect.  And 
in  the  course  of  its  development  we  can  see 
its  gradual  purification  and  expansion.  But 
though  certain  ethical  institutions,  like  the 
family,  for  example,  are  differently  regarded 
at  different  times  and  in  various  stages  of 
civilization,  the  quintessence  of  morality  is 


242  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

as  clearly  discernible  amongst  savages  as 
amongst  ourselves,  and  when  due  allowance 
is  made  for  a  society  whose  normal  condi- 
tion is  war,  the  difference  either  vanishes 
or  remains  such  as  is  inevitable  from  the 
inequality  of  development  in  the  intellec- 
tual faculties  and  in  social  organization. 
Now  such  a  permanent  and  essential  factor 
in  man's  make-up  must  have  its  ground  in 
the  eternal  Spirit  from  which  we  derive 
our  existence.  God,  therefore,  is  a  God  of 
righteousness. 

This  conclusion,  it  must  now  be  ad- 
mitted, is  not  inevitable  for  the  man  who 
can  repudiate  the  absolute  and  self-attest- 
ing majesty  of  moral  law.  And  various 
attempts  have  been  made  to  explain  it  as 
an  illusion  incident  to  the  circumstances 
of  its  origin.  The  most  fashionable  theory 
to-day  is  that  mankind  was  moralized  by 
fortuitous  modes  of  conduct,  among  which 
the  struggle  for  existence  decided  which 
was  best.  This  theory  of  evolutionary 
morals  is  not  so  much  false  as  incomplete. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  was  amid 
the  warfare  of  life  that  man  first  awoke  to 
a  sense  of  the  value  of  courage  and  all  the 
sterner  virtues,  and  even  the  gentler  vir- 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  243 

tues  of  honesty,  truthfulness,  fidelity,  and 
compassion,  may  have  been  quickened  by 
the  same  rude  process.  But  the  physical 
conditions  under  which  any  mental  pro- 
duct (even  a  sensation)  appears  are  a  very 
different  thing  from  the  nature  of  that 
product  itself,  and  they  do  not  in  the 
least  touch  the  question  of  the  innate  con- 
stitution of  the  soul  that  enables  it  to  make 
this  response  to  those  external  stimulants. 
And  what  we  have  been  maintaining  is 
that  our  perception  of  right  and  wrong, 
and  our  recognition  of  the  authority  of 
the  right,  even  if  they  have  been  quick- 
ened by  natural  selection,  testify  clearly 
to  a  moral  capacity  in  the  human  spirit, 
which  must  have  its  ground  in  the  one 
infinite  Spirit.  But  should  any  one  see  in 
moral  law  merely  a  code  of  prudential  max- 
ims that  had  forgotten  their  selfish  utilities 
and  taken  themselves  for  absolute  goods, 
he  might  retort  that  though  morality  had 
its  root  in  the  soul,  it  was  merely  a  self- 
seeking  root,  whose  native  ugliness  had 
been  overlaid  by  the  casual  products  of 
natural  selection.  If  the  moral  ideal,  which 
we  have  believed  something  absolutely 
worthful,  were  only  a  form  of  selfishness 


244  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

in  disguise,  it  would  of  course  cease  to  be 
an  ideal  for  those  who  had  seen  into  the 
illusion,  and  they  would  be  left  Avithout 
any  motive  for  postulating  a  moral  charac- 
ter in  God.  In  a  last  resort,  our  view  of 
the  moral  character  of  God  is  conditioned 
by  our  interpretation  of  the  moral  nature 
and  vocation  of  man. 

I  am  not,  however,  disposed  to  believe 
that  our  ethical  schools  differ  as  much  in 
this  interpretation  as  they  themselves  sup- 
pose. No  school  would  to-day  assert  that 
the  essence  of  goodness  is  selfishness.  All 
schools  agree  that  a  large  part,  if  not  the 
whole,  of  goodness  consists  in  what  in  its 
various  degrees  we  name  benevolence,  love, 
or  self-sacrifice.  This  is  the  fundamental 
principle  of  Christian  ethics,  whether  we 
regard  the  life  or  the  teaching  of  its  founder. 
But  that  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law  is 
also  the  doctrine  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  the 
classic  expounder  of  utilitarianism.  And 
though  the  utilitarian  theory  has  been 
modified  in  many  ways  by  an  infusion  of 
Darwinism,  the  "absolute  ethics"  of  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  still  has  for  goal  the 
Golden  Rule  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  More 
than  this  ought  never  to  have  been  claimed 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  245 

by  the  intuitional  moralist.  For  all  our 
moral  codes  and  institutions  are  but  em- 
pirical attempts  to  realize  this  transcendent 
ideal.  That  there  is  such  a  moral  ideal  no 
school  denies,  or  can  deny.  But  while  the 
intuitional  moralist  has  contented  himself 
with  the  bald  statement  of  the  fact,  his 
more  scientific  opponents  have  endeavored 
to  discover  the  circumstances  and  processes 
of  its  realization.  Some  of  their  work  has 
been  valuable ;  but  as  for  the  most  part  it 
lay  outside  the  ken  of  history,  it  has  been 
made  up  of  arbitrary  and  dogmatic  conjec- 
ture. But  discarding  all  this  surplusage, 
we  find  the  schools  of  derivative  morality 
agreeing  with  the  intuitionist  in  the  recog- 
nition of  an  absolutely  worthf  ul  moral  ideal, 
—  an  ideal  that  is  an  end  in  itself,  never  a 
means  to  anything  else.  And  this  ideal  is 
described,  subjectively,  as  universal  benevo- 
lence or  love ;  objectively,  as  the  well-being 
of  mankind. 

Of  this  ideal  human  morality  is  the  real- 
ization. It  is  this  ideal  that  shapes  the 
relations  and  institutions  that  bind  us  to 
one  another  and  condition  our  appropria- 
tion of  external  objects.  It  would  of  course 
forever  remain  a  blank  in  the  mind,  were 


246  BELIEF  IN  GOB. 

there  not  a  world  of  persons  and  things  that 
presented  material  for  its  plastic  operation. 
But  given  these,  it  realizes  itself  through 
differentiation ;  that  is  to  say,  it  takes  •  as 
many  forms  as  the  material  provides  for. 
Thus  in  relation  to  the  datum  of  sex,  it 
yields  the  institution  of  marriage  and  the 
virtue  of  chastity.  In  relation  to  the  datum 
of  labor,  it  yields  the  institution  of  prop- 
erty and  the  virtue  of  justice.  Of  course 
with  deeper  insight  into  the  essential  con- 
tent of  the  ideal,  we  become  dissatisfied 
with  existent  morality,  and  press  forward 
to  the  mark  of  a  higher  calling.  This  is* 
moral  progress,  which  begins  with  indi- 
viduals, and  ultimately  embraces  nations. 
Though  slow,  it  has  already  made  sevem,! 
revolutions  in  the  history  of  the  family; 
and  if  I  rightly  read  the  signs  of  the  times, 
it  seems  likely  in  our  own  generation  to 
change  our  views  of  property  and  justice. 

To  come  now  to  the  application  of  this 
doctrine.  I  have  maintained  that  though 
the  basis  of  the  theistic  argument  is  cosmic, 
it  is  only  our  own  self-conscious  spirit  that 
enables  us  to  discover  what  the  natute  of 
the  cosmic  principle  really  is.  But  though 
an  intelligent  and  volitional  being  would 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  247 

account  for  the  phenomena  of  the  material 
world,  it  would  supply  no  ground  for  the 
moral  ideal  of  man,  which  is  as  real  as  any- 
other  fact  in  the  universe.  We  must  not, 
therefore,  hesitate  to  carry  our  "  anthropo- 
morphism "  so  far  as  to  conceive  the  Spirit 
of  the  universe  as  a  God  of  love.  It  is 
true  that  this  attribute  of  God  is  not  so 
fully  evidenced  as  the  others.  They  are  re- 
quired both  for  the  interpretation  of  nature 
and  of  humanity ;  this,  only  for  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  moral  life  of  man.  Still, 
it  is  highly  improbable  that  the  eter- 
nal Reality  which  has  brought  us  forth, 
and  charged  us  with  the  duty  of  loving 
one  another,  —  so  that  love  is  the  highest 
good  and  end  in  life,  —  should  itself  be  a 
loveless  Reality.  And  when  we  further 
remember  that  we  have  no  experience  of  a 
Spirit  in  whom  self-consciousness  and  will 
are  divorced  from  goodness,  we  shall  find 
ourselves  obliged  by  sheer  consistency,  if 
we  say,  as  we  must  say,  that  God  is  spirit, 
to  acknowledge  also  that  God  is  love.  In- 
deed, did  our  metaphysics  go  far  enough, 
it  would  have  to  confess  that  man  has  an 
ideal  of  goodness  solely  because  the  infinite 
spirit,  of  which  the  finite  is  a  partial  reve- 


248  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

lation,  is  the  perfect  realization  of  good- 
ness. I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  God 
realizes  in  himself  our  differentiated  moral- 
ity, —  our  ethical  precepts,  laws,  and  insti- 
tutions. For  these  have  significance  only 
for  a  finite  spirit  that  has  outside  itself  a 
world  of  co-equal  spirits  and  of  things, 
with  which  it  holds  external  relations. 
But  love,  which  is  the  underlying  ground 
of  all  our  morality,  may  be  actualized  in 
the  divine  nature.  For  love  is  precisely 
that  which  effaces  distinction  between  our- 
selves and  another.  And  God's  love  for  man 
is  the  expression  of  his  oneness  with  us. 
This  oneness,  however,  was  implied  in  our 
metaphysical  theory  of  anthropocosmic  the- 
ism, which  is  thus  confirmed  by  the  result 
of  our  ethical  reflections.  It  only  remains 
to  add  that  if,  as  we  acknowledged,  man 
has  communion  with  God  through  the 
avenues  of  the  true  and  the  beautiful,  the 
deepest  communion  comes  through  the  love 
that  answers  to  our  consciousness  of  God's 
love,  since  nothing  else  but  love  can  abolish 
the  distinction  between  its  subject  and  its 
object. 

We   cannot    attribute   goodness   to   the 
eternal   ground  of  things  without  feeling 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  249 

painfully  the  contradictions  of  actual  ex- 
perience. At  the  breath  of  sin  .and  suffer- 
ing every  theory  of  the  universe  grows 
sombre  and  unsteady.  But  that  there  is 
nevertheless  a  striving  after  a  supreme  end 
in  the  world  is  a  belief  we  cannot  be  made 
to  surrender.  Good  must  in  some  way  be 
the  final  cause  of  ill.  Absolute  evil  — 
evil  in  itself,  in  its  beginning,  and  in  its 
issue  —  is  an  eternal  devil  we  cannot  brook 
to  keep  its  state  in  the  world.  This  is  the 
motive  to  every  theodicy.  This  is  why 
we  have  a  problem  of  evil,  but  no  corre- 
sponding problem  of  good.  Into  such  a 
deep  subject  we  cannot  plunge  at  the 
close  of  this  series  of  lectures.  But  I  may 
observe  that  as  among  lower  animals  the 
struggle  for  life  has  conduced  to  greater 
perfection,  so  men  too  are  made  perfect 
through  suffering.  And  that  not  merely 
through  chastening  of  character,  which  is 
a  discipline  that  perhaps  healthy  men  need 
as  much  as  the  sick,  who,  it  must  be  ac- 
knowledged, sometimes  miss  it  through  ex- 
tremity of  suffering.  But  suffering  induces 
men  to  look  for  remedies.  And  these  are 
to  be  found  only  through  a  knowledge  of 
natural  laws.    Without  human  needs  primi- 


250  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

tive  man  would  not  have  undertaken  the 
labor  of  investigation.  And  God,  as  ground 
of  nature,  would  have  remained  unknown 
to  mankind.  In  a  very  real  sense,  there- 
fore, God  could  not  have  revealed  himself 
to  the  race  without  human  suffering.  And 
the  end  being  attained,  man  is  using  his 
knowledge  of  nature  for  the  elimination  of 
suffering,  which  has  already  proceeded  at 
such  a  rate  that  it  is  scarcely  optimistic  to 
forecast  its  ultimate  disappearance.  Mean- 
while the  study  of  nature,  to  which  need 
compelled  mankind,  will  continue  an  end 
in  itself.  Even  if  we  had  a  perfect  science 
of  medicine,  the  infinite  complexity  and 
immensity  of  nature  would  still  be  unex- 
plored. 

As  suffering  leads  men  to  a  knowledge 
of  the  cosmic  manifestation  of  God,  so  also 
it  is  the  indispensable  condition  of  the 
emergence  of  sympathy  and  compassion  in 
the  heart  of  man.  Without  suffering  and 
mutual  needs  there  could  be  no  human 
fellowship  and  love.  The  sociability  of 
animals,  which  prefigures  human  love,  is 
founded  on  the  same  basis.  But  as  love  is 
the  cementing  principle  of  human  society, 
so  it  is  love  that  unites  us  to  God.     It  is 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  251 

through  love,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the 
infinite  spirit  reveals  itself  in  a  very  espe- 
cial way  to  the  finite.  Without  some  feel- 
ing of  want,  some  suffering  in  a  greater 
or  less  degree,  man  could  not  receive  this 
revelation  of  the  heart  of  God. 

Nor  is  the  problem  of  sin  altogether 
insoluble  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
theism  here  advanced.  At  least  we  can 
understand  how  it  originates  and  conjec- 
ture the  function  it  subserves.  That  the 
possibility  of  sin  is  the  correlative  of  the 
free  initiative  God  has  vacated  on  man's 
behalf  is  an  old  and  not  unsatisfactory  ex- 
planation of  its  origin.  Now  the  essence 
of  sin,  as  mystics  have  always  felt,  is  the 
enthronement  of  self.  It  is  selfishness, 
self-isolation.  Yet  without  such  self-absorp- 
tion there  could  be  no  sense  of  union  with 
God.  For  consciousness  is  possible  only 
through  opposition.  To  knoAv  A  we  must 
know  it  through  not- J..  Alienation  from 
God  is  the  necessary  condition  of  com- 
munion with  God.  And  this  is  the  mean- 
ing of  the  scripture  that  where  sin  abounded 
grace  shall  much  more  abound. 

The  movement  of  consciousness  from  the 
one  pole  to  the  other,  or  what  we  call  con- 


252  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

version,  may  also  be  understood,  in  a  meas- 
ure, from  the  standpoint  of  antliropocos- 
mic  theism.  The  change  is  very  properly 
described  as  a  new  birth.  For  that  man 
is  made  a  new  creature  who  has  come  to 
see  that  God  and  not  self  is  the  centre  of 
reality.  Still  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  a  natural  birth  is  only  the  emergence 
into  light  of  a  reality  that  already  existed 
in  a  definite  fashion.  So  in  the  new  birth 
the  soul  simply  actualizes  in  its  life  and 
experience  what  was  metaphysically  po- 
tential before ;  namely,  its  union  with  God. 
God  and  man  were  always  one ;  God  was 
always  love :  the  new  birth  consists  in 
man's  recognition  and  appropriation  of  tliis 
fact. 

The  doctrine  of  the  God-man  is  the  nat- 
ural consequence  of  our  theory  of  uni- 
versal being.  God  is  the  Father  of  spirits; 
men  are  the  children  of  God.  That  the 
sons  of  the  divine  Father  should  be  dif- 
ferently endowed  is  a  matter  that  presents 
no  difficulty.  The  great  spirits  of  the  race 
are  the  standard-bearers  of  its  civilization ; 
and  we  are  all  the  richer  for  the  artistic 
sense  of  Pheidias,  the  organizing  power  of 
Caesar,  the  poetic  genius  of  Shakespeare, 


AS  FATHER  Oh'  SPIRITS.  253 

and  the  scientific  intellect  of  Newton. 
Greater  yet  is  our  debt  to  those  still  higher 
spirits  that  have  lived  and  died  for  the 
good.  Nor  among  these  choicest  sons  of 
the  universal  Father  is  there  any  meta- 
physical impropriety  in  supposing  one  to 
be  in  some  pre-eminent  sense  the  Son  of 
God.  I  do  not  know,  however,  that  any 
gain  would  come  to  our  theology  in  de- 
scribing this  unique  personality  as  "  very 
God,"  much  less  as  "  mere  man."  For  it 
is  a  false  metaphysic  that  separates  God 
and  man,  and  entangles  itself  with  its  own 
one-sided  abstractions.  Personality  can- 
not be  rendered  in  terms  of  any  abstract 
system,  without  omitting  its  essence.  We 
can  he  persons,  and  feel  the  influence  of 
persons,  but  personality  is  something  other 
than  any  definition  of  it.  That  men  are 
now  giving  up  the  search  for  barren  for- 
mulae to  describe  the  Christ  and  insisting 
everywhere  on  the  vitalizing  power  of  his 
gracious  personality,  seems  to  me  the  most 
hopeful  feature  in  the  religious  life  of  our 
day.  Only  in  this  way  is  it  possible  for 
the  Son  of  Man  to  become  the  actual 
saviour  of  humanity. 

Of  that  life  and  immortality  brought  to 


264  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

light  in  the  Gospel,  our  theistic  theory- 
supplies  the  metaphysical  basis.  Because 
man  lives  in  God  here  and  now,  he  shall 
live  with  God  in  the  kingdom  where  time 
and  space  are  not.  This  is  a  metaphysical 
insight  that  carries  us  far  beyond  all  the 
materialistic  objections  to  existence  after 
death.  But  even  on  that  lower  plane  it 
may  not  be  out  of  place  to  remark  that 
though  physical  and  psychical  changes  co- 
exist, we  are  still  as  far  as  ever  from  see- 
ing any  necessary  connection  between  them 
which  might  justify  the  belief  that  when 
the  brain  is  out  the  man  is  dead.  The 
difference  between  the  ego  and  the  brain 
is  absolute.  One  is  a  thing,  closely  con- 
nected, it  is  true,  with  our  life  ;  the  other 
is  a  self  that  is  conscious  of  its  existence 
and  opposes  itself  to  mere  things.  This 
selfhood  it  is  also  that  forbids  us  to  merge 
at  death  the  individual  into  the  universal 
life.  Pantheistic  disparagement  of  person- 
ality runs  counter  to  our  experience  of  its 
existence,  our  conviction  that  it  is  the 
highest  fact  in  the  universe,  and  our  re- 
flective insight  into  its  indispensableness 
for  the  self-revelation  of  God,  whom  the 
pantheist  mistakes  for  an  infinite  that  ex- 


AS  FATHER   OF  SPIRITS.  255 

eludes  the  finite.  Not  only  is  the  self  an 
inexpugnable  reality,  but  its  capacity  of 
knowing  and  loving  being  of  larger  scope 
than  can  be  satisfied  by  the  measure  of 
our  earthly  life,  its  very  make  and  func- 
tions carry  with  them  the  postulate  of 
eternity.  And  this  postulate  is  accredited 
by  a  theory  that  conceives  death  as  a  mere 
change  in  things,  while  the  ego  continues 
to  live  in  the  embrace  of  the  absolute  life. 
Because  we  are  one  with  God,  the  ground 
of  our  communion  can  never  be  broken. 
And  in  the  development  of  the  religious 
consciousness,  it  was  this  lively  sense  of 
present  conftnunion  with  God  that  first  led 
men  to  conceive  of  an  eternal  continuance 
of  it  hereafter.  Such,  at  any  rate,  is  the 
forceful  and  aspiring  logic  of  the  earlier 
Psalmists  and  the  writer  of  the  book  of 
Job.  So,  also,  was  it  with  the  assurance 
that  nothing  evil  could  happen  to  the  good 
man,  that  Socrates,  after  rehearsing  all 
other  arguments  against  annihilation,  com- 
posed himself  for  death. 

Of  rewards  and  punishments  which  once 
played  so  prominent  a  part  in  natural 
theology,  our  metaphysical  theory,  strictly 
considered,  has  nothing  to  say.     We  have 


256  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

a 

given  reasons  for  our  faith  in  an  intelligent 
and  moral  ground  of  the  universe,  whose 
life  makes  human  life  divine  and  immortal, 
whose  love  is  of  such  incalculable  reach, 
that  even  sin  and  suffering  must  be  the 
media  of  its  revelation.  That  God  is  Love 
was  the  good  tidings  of  the  Gospel  of 
Christ.  And  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the 
whole  law.  It  is  superfluous,  therefore,  to 
predicate  any  other  moral  attribute  of  God. 
Popular  theology,  however,  insists  that  the 
Deity  must  also  be  described  as  just.  And 
in  this  instance  it  receives  powerful  sup- 
port from  Dr.  Martineau,  who  contends 
that  our  moral  nature  compels  us  to  con- 
ceive of  God  as  invested  with  these  three 
attributes :  benevolence  towards  sentient 
beings ;  justice  towards  moral  beings  who 
are  under  probation ;  amity  towards  beings 
that  have  attained  a  moral  harmony.  In 
view  of  this  contention,  we  must  inquire 
what  is  meant  by  the  justice  of  God,  and 
especially  its  relation  to  the  doctrine  of 
rewards  and  punishments. 

In  this  inquiry  it  is  important  to  bear  in 
mind  two  facts.  First,  in  early  times  jural 
and  ethical  notions  were  not  distinguish- 
able.    If  in  the  course  of  ages  they  have, 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  257 

at  least  to  a  considerable  extent,  become 
differentiated  and  taken  on  distinctive  char- 
acteristics, their  common  source  was  un- 
written custom.  It  need  not  surprise  us, 
therefore,  to  find  that  at  the  present  day  the 
moral  continues  to  be  confounded  with  the 
legal.  The  penalties  by  which  laws  are 
enforced  are  transferred  from  crimes  to 
evils ;  and  the  divine  author  of  moral  law 
becomes,  like  the  earthly  sovereign,  a  ter- 
ror to  evil-doers.  Secondly,  the  trium- 
phant faith  in  the  love  and  goodness  of 
God  is,  as  we  have  shown  in  an  earlier 
lecture,  a  late  growth  in  the  religious  con- 
sciousness of  mankind.  It  has  not  yet, 
even  *in  Christendom,  succeeded  in  dis- 
placing the  older  conception  of  the  Deity 
as  a  God  of  wrath  and  terror.  And  a  sort 
of  compromise  has  silently  established  it- 
self between  the  ethical  religion  of  Christ 
and  the  earlier  legal  religions,  whereby  the 
essential  features  of  both,  contradictory 
though  they  are,  have  been  perpetuated. 
It  is  to  this  source,  and  not  to  tlie  deliver- 
ances of  the  moral  consciousness,  that  I 
refer  Dr.  Martineau's  list  of  the  divine  at- 
tributes. Justice  is  a  civic  virtue  which 
has  too  narrow  a  meaning  to  predicate  of 


258  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

the  Christian  conception  of  God.  Our 
courts  of  justice  have  too  long  furnished 
us  with  metaphorical  descriptions  of  the 
divine  government.  From  the  primitive 
notion  of  the  Deity  as  a  judge  or  sovereign 
enforcing  his  arbitrary  decrees,  we  must 
rise  to  the  Christian  thought  of  a  loving 
Father  bent  on  the  education  of  the  hu- 
man race.  And  from  this  higher  point  of 
view,  if  any  place  were  left  for  a  divine 
punitive  function,  it  could  have  no  other 
end  than  the  well-being  of  the  sufferer. 

It  is  to  this  higher  standpoint  that  the 
moral  and  religious  consciousness  of  our  age 
is  steadily  advancing.  To  the  economic 
and  jural  consciences  of  earlier  genera- 
tions there  seemed  a  necessary  connection 
between  virtues  and  rewards  and  between 
vices  and  punishments.  The  conventional 
penalties  attached  by  legislatures  to  the 
violation  of  laws  seemed  to  belong  to  the 
nature  of  things ;  and  God  himself,  to  be 
just,  was  conceived  as  distributing  felicity 
and  suffering  according  to  the  deserts  of 
the  recipient.  But  it  is  no  sense  of  justice 
that  demands  punishment  for  crime.  The 
only  possible  justification  for  inflicting 
punishment  upon  a  criminal  is  either  the 


AS  FARTHER  OF  SPIBITS.  259 

protection  of  society  or  the  improvement 
of  the  criminal,  or  both  ends  combined. 
But  the  Omnipotent  needs  no  protection 
against  evil  doers.  Neither  does  he,  any 
more  than  the  perfect  human  father,  have 
to  resort  to  punishment  for  the  education 
of  his  children.  External  punishment, 
therefore,  is  unthinkable  for  human  sins. 
Nor  can  there  be  any  external  reward  for 
human  goodness,  the  very  essence  of  which 
consists  in  being  for  its  own  sake.  The 
hope  of  rewards  would  transform  virtue 
into  prudence. 

But  the  truth  which  this  prudential  and 
legal  theory  of  external  rewards  and  pun- 
ishments fails  to  express  is  clear  enough 
when  we  take  a  more  philosophic  view  of 
the  human  soul.  If  we  neither  personify 
nor  localize  spiritual  conditions,  it  yet  re- 
mains true  that  in  the  divinely  established 
order  of  things,  every  act  or  thought  leaves 
its  impress  on  our  character  and  makes  us 
either  more  godlike  or  more  carnal.  This 
immanent  natural  causation  popular  the- 
ology takes  for  an  external  administration 
in  another  sphere  of  being.  Here  is  the 
basis  of  those  legal  and  penal  ideas  it 
associates  with  the  future  life.     The  truth, 


260  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

of  course,  is  that  heaven  and  hell,  as  they 
will  be,  have  begun  here  and  are  in  us  now. 

"  The  mind  is  its  own  place,  and  in  itself 
Can  make  a  heaven  of  hell,  a  hell  of  heaven." 

Nothing  requires  us  then  to  modify  the 
conclusion  already  reached  that  love  is  the 
complete  expression  of  the  moral  character 
of  God.  This  also  is  the  burden  of  the 
revelation  through  Christ  as  it  is  the  one 
imperishable  idea  of  every  form  of  the 
Christian  faith.  I  believe,  therefore,  that 
it  is  to  the  religion  of  Christ,  as  the  abso- 
lute religion,  that  we  shall  find  ourselves 
approximating,  the  deeper  our  soundings  in 
the  soul  of  man  and  of  nature.  But  that 
religion  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  any 
rigid  and  unprogressive  creed  that  claims, 
in  a  formidable  array  of  ancient  articles,  a 
monopoly  of  Christian  truth.  Not  merely 
do  we  need,  what  Locke  so  earnestly  de- 
manded, a  broadening  of  the  bottom  of 
religion  ;  we  need  also  a  recognition  of  its 
constant  progressiveness.  For  our  knowl- 
edge of  God  must  continue  to  grow  with 
our  knowledge  of  humanity  and  nature 
through  which  alone  he  reveals  himself. 
The  endless  problem  of  religious  thought 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  261 

will  therefore  be  the  resetting  of  the 
religion  of  Christ  in  the  framework  of 
contemporary  knowledge.  When  this  is 
wanting,  there  arises  a  warfare,  not  indeed 
as  the  vulgar  suppose  of  science  with  re- 
ligion, but  of  later  science  with  earlier 
science  in  terms  of  which  religion  is  still 
expressed.  Modern  science  is  not  antag- 
onistic to  the  religion  of  Christ,  but  it  is 
fatal  to  those  confessions  of  the  Christian 
religion  which  have  been  embodied  in  an 
antiquated  psychology,  anthropology,  cos- 
mology, and  history.  The  process  of  re- 
adjustment is  going  on  rapidly,  and  it  is 
much  more  thorough  in  the  actual  beliefs 
of  men  than  in  the  revised  creeds  that  are 
supposed  to  represent  them.  Even  the 
new  biblical  criticism  has  won  a  victory 
almost  as  complete  as  that  of  astronomy, 
geology,  and  zoology.  The  sober  and 
cautious  spirit  of  modern  culture  has  once 
for  all  domiciled  itself  in  the  realm  of 
theology  also. 

It  is  perhaps  on  the  subject  of  miracles 
that  the  readjustment  is  slowest  and  most 
difficult.  Nor  is  this  astonishing,  since,  as 
Goethe  put  it, 


262  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

Das  Wunder  ist  des  Glauhens  liebstes  KindA 

Both  the  metaphysical  possibility  and  the 
historical  evidence  of  miracles  have  been 
canvassed  with  a  great  array  of  learning 
and  philosophy.  The  a  priori  arguments 
are  pretty  nearly  what  they  were  in  the 
time  of  Hume.  But  the  problem  has 
taken  on  a  new  complexion  from  the  ad- 
vance in  critical  and  historical  scholarship. 
Miracles  can  be  accounted  for,  —  at  least, 
in  the  belief  of  those  who  describe  them. 
And  whether  they  actually  happened  or 
not  is  a  question  that  is  left  to  answer  it- 
self. It  is,  however,  on  the  answer  to  this 
question,  that  many  religious  minds  sup- 
pose their  faith  to  depend.  And  on  this 
point  I  will  venture  a  couple  of  observa- 
tions. The  first  is  that  whatever  may  be 
the  final  word  regarding  miraculous  hap- 
penings in  the  realm  of  nature,  every  hu- 
man soul  in  the  present  condition  of  our 
knowledge  is  a  miracle  —  a  miracle  which 
is  especially  conspicuous  in  the  great 
geniuses  of  our  race.  Such  a  miracle  was 
the  founder  of  Christianity  whose  marvel- 
lous personality  still  works  wonders  on  the 

1  The  Miracle  is  dearest  Child  of  Faith. 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIRITS.  263 

souls  of  men.  This  is  a  fact  of  actual  ex- 
perience which  every  inquirer  may  verify 
for  himself.  And  as  it  is  not  supported, 
neither  is  it  invalidated  by  any  views  that 
may  be  entertained  regarding  a  unique 
power  exercised  over  nature  two  thousand 
years  ago.  My  second  observation  is  that 
in  considering  miracles  we  must  always 
distinguish  between  the  picture  or  symbol 
and  the  thing  signified.  For  example, 
most  religions,  including  the  Christian, 
tell  of  the  miraculous  ascension  of  their 
founders  to  heaven.  Now  the  thought 
which  it  is  here  attempted  to  picture  before 
the  eyes,  is  that  the  souls  of  the  good, 
untouched  by  death,  live  eternally  with 
God.  With  this  thought  philosophy  and 
theology  have  alike  made  us  familiar. 
And  we  are  able  to  realize  it  without  the 
aid  of  the  visualizing  imagination.  But 
to  the  average  Jew  and  Greek  of  the  first 
Christian  century,  whose  conception  of  the 
hereafter  was  that  of  a  shadowy  existence 
in  the  underworld  of  sheol  or  hades,  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  an  actual  and  eternal 
life  with  God  was  novel,  startling,  and  al- 
together unrealizable  in  abstract  thought. 
But  what  understanding   could   not   con- 


264  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

ceive,  imagination  could  symbolize  in  pic- 
tures of  cosmic  space.  It  is  in  fact  a  law  of 
religious  history  that  vision  always  comes 
to  the  aid  of  faith.  And  up  to  the  time 
of  the  Copernican  astronomy  the  visual 
picture  of  a  flight  above  the  stars  served 
to  realize  and  verify  the  belief  in  continued 
life  with  God.  But  in  the  restless  march 
of  mind,  the  aids  of  one  generation  become 
the  obstacles  of  the  next.  And  our  helio- 
centric astronomy,  with  its  conception  of  il- 
limitable space  and  infinite  worlds,  with  its 
delocalization  of  heaven  and  decentraliza- 
tion of  earth,  has  made  the  once  expressive 
picture  of  an  ascension  through  the  clouds 
altogether  meaningless.  The  abstract  doc- 
trine of  immortality  has  itself  become 
perfectly  intelligible  to  us.  The  symbol 
which  once  interpreted  it  now  only  ob- 
scures it.  Meantime  popular  theology  has 
taken  the  symbol  for  the  substance.  It  is 
concerned  to  prove  that  the  Christ  actually 
disappeared  in  the  upper  air  from  the 
vision  of  his  disciples.  It  ignores  the  one 
important  question,  what  was  the  meaning 
or  intention  of  this  flight  even  if  we  sup- 
pose it  to  have  taken  j)lace.  To  pre-Co- 
pernican   thought   it  meant  of  course  an 


AS  FATHER  OF  SPIBITS.  265 

ascent  to  heaven.  But  in  our  theory  of 
the  universe  it  can  have  no  such  signifi- 
cance. It  is  in  fact  an  obsolete  picture  of 
an  eternal  truth.  That  truth  is  the  fact 
of  continued  life  with  God,  uninterrupted 
even  by  death.  Here  is  the  real  mystery, 
the  miracle  of  miracles,  in  whose  naked 
presence  all  symbols  vanish  away. 

From  sjmibol  to  essence,  from  picture  to 
reality,  from  myth  to  fact,  from  the  Chris- 
tian religion  to  the  religion  of  Chi'ist : 
such  is  the  movement  which  under  the  in- 
fluence of  scientific  criticism  is  reshaping 
the  theology  of  our  day.  The .  goal  is  no 
longer  dogmas  about  the  Messiah,  but  the 
actual  content  of  the  revelation  made  in 
and  through  the  historic  Christ.  This,  it 
is  felt,  is  the  imperishable  essence  of  every 
form  of  Christianity.  Now,  though  it  is  no 
doubt  difficult  to  describe  adequately  a 
religion  that  was  embodied  in  a  personality, 
it  will  be  admitted  that  the  main  constitu- 
ent of  the  religion  of  Christ  was  a  sense 
of  filial  relation  to  God  conceived  as  uni- 
versal Spirit  and  Father.  The  examina- 
tion we  have  undertaken  of  the  grounds 
for  belief  in  God  seemed,  therefore,  to 
be  demanded  by  the    movement  and  ten- 


266  BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

dency  of  contemporary  Christian  theology. 
What  its  value  may  be  as  a  contribution 
to  the  question  at  issue,  must  be  left  to 
others  to  determine.  But  for  my  own  part 
I  think  it  has  been  shown  that  the  phe- 
nomena both  of  the  universe  and  of  human 
life  require  the  thinking  mind  to  postulate 
a  Supreme  Ground  of  things  which  we  are 
entitled  to  describe  as  self-conscious  Spirit 
and  loving  Father. 


TJNIVERSIT 


Typography  by  J.  S,  Gushing  &  Co.,  Boston. 
Presswork  by  Berwick  &  Smith,  Boston. 


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